Adam Wathan the creator of Tailwind CSS posted that he had to let go of 75% of his engineering team because of AI. He said traffic to the Tailwind help documentation is down 40% and that is where most people learn about his solution and then buy commercial products. He added his revenue is down 80%.
“Traffic to our docs is down about 40% from early 2023 despite Tailwind being more popular than ever,” he added. He then goes on to explain that “The docs are the only way people find out about our commercial products, and without customers we can’t afford to maintain the framework.”
People no longer need to look at their docs or their website because they ask AI how to do something with tailwind instead, so they no longer get to expose and advertise their product (tailwind plus).
Tailwind plus is a one time payment, not a subscription. If there are no new customers to buy it, their income is gone.
The claim is the as revenue they generate from their documentation site has been cut because LLM programming tools and AI-summaries on search engines reduce the number if people visiting the doc site
Why would the revenue be down because AI when “it’s more popular than ever”?
People no longer need to look at their docs or their website because they ask AI how to do something with tailwind instead, so they no longer get to expose and advertise their product (tailwind plus).
Tailwind plus is a one time payment, not a subscription. If there are no new customers to buy it, their income is gone.
Ah, I wasn’t aware.
The claim is the as revenue they generate from their documentation site has been cut because LLM programming tools and AI-summaries on search engines reduce the number if people visiting the doc site
Clarification: revenue from advertising their own paid services, not revenue from selling ad space to third parties