Think about how you'd feel about receiving:

- An interesting sweater

- A sweater from a friend who thought you'd like it

- A handmade sweater from your grandma

- A worn-out sweater that belonged to one of your favorite artists

Little of what you’d feel comes from the sweater itself, or how much effort it took to make it.

The value largely comes from the person behind it. What it says about them, how they connect to you or the wider culture.

These kinds of projects used to be that same kind of window into another like minded hacker’s thoughts, personality, taste, and sense of humor.

That sort of thing is still out there, just getting drowned out by these low effort AI generated attention grabs, which really don’t say much of anything besides “here’s a statistically average rendition of a random thought that passed through my head.”