DmytriJan 26

The Rise of the Slopreneur.

As soon as I typed that sentence, I just knew that someone else had already typed it. So I checked, the old way. Sure enough, James Rendel had already opened a LinkedIn post with exactly that line. It is on his Substack.
1/11

#TheGeneralTheoryOfSlop

Show threadDmytriJan 26

James Rendel, The Slopreneur, The EssAI, Oct 3, 2025.
https://theessai.substack.com/p/the-slopreneur

In the spirit of low effort, Rendel's post also saves me the trouble of defining the term. He asked three chatbots. Heres what ChatGPT said:
2/11

THE SLOPRENEUR

When generating slop turns professional.

The essAI
Show threadDmytriJan 26
"An entrepreneur who produces low quality, derivative, or mass generated output especially AI generated content typically prioritising speed, volume, or short term gain over originality, craft, or long term value."
3/11
Show threadDmytri
This is the latest version of the same old get rich quick scheme. The tiny classified ads from Don Lapre, Tom Vu on the yacht, those late night seminars about flipping houses with zero down.
4/11
Jan 26 at 5:31pmWeb
Show threadDmytriJan 26

Now it's "Create hundreds of ads, social media posts, and emails while you sleep." (A real ad I saw today)

None of this is surprising. The promise of easy money finds a ready audience.
5/11

Show threadDmytriJan 26
Startups will convince them that they can be writers, artists, app developers all with zero effort, even while they sleep. Anyone with an interest in business knows how this goes.
6/11
Show threadDmytriJan 26
Low investment, low effort, low skill work will never survive against competition with more money and skill and who put in real work. However, there is a lot of money to be made selling this kind of dream.
7/11
Show threadDmytriJan 26
I love conversational interfaces, and I am a big proponent of automation. The trouble is when these tools are not sold as productivity software to empower people who are doing work, with skill and effort, but as ways to create value without skill and effort.
8/11
Show threadDmytriJan 26

This is the Slopreneur Economy.

Since much of our economy, especially in new technology, is driven by investors, the spectacular growth of startups serving the bottomless slopreneur economy diverts investment away from companies creating more durable businesses.
9/11

Show threadDmytriJan 26
Metrics of scale take attention away from substance, diverting capital from ventures that create real jobs and build sustainable revenues, to those that build roach motels with impressive ROAS but dismal LTV.
10/11
Show threadDmytriJan 26
The inevitable result is that the Slopreneur Economy will fill the web with slop.
11/11
Show threadJonathan SchofieldFeb 2

@dk they are frequently being sold as productivity tools though, and the return is looking like it’s frequently not what’s promised.

And beneath that is the very notion of productivity. Without going there directly, cos that’s a whole thing, what is everpresent and not too hard to see is…

the distancing of consequence from convenience, and the ramping up of the number of machines involved in task mediation/facilitation. Put another way, the distancing of people from people

Show threadDmytriFeb 2

@urlyman yeah, I wrote something related here:

https://tldr.nettime.org/@dk/115894430339086109

Show threadJonathan SchofieldFeb 2
@dk that’s a nice turn of phrase