Mechanism◆Article
AI is causing a double whammy on course sales: fear over whether developer jobs will still exist makes people reluctant to invest time or money learning new dev skills, and those who still want to learn can get free personalized tutoring from LLMs instead of buying a course.
Comeau attributes the sales decline mainly to AI: job insecurity discourages learning investment, and LLMs offer free personalized tutoring that substitutes for paid courses. ✦ AI generated
Josh W. Comeau · Simon Willison's Weblog · 2026-07-03 · original ↗
Many people are wondering whether developer jobs will even exist in a few months, so they're reluctant to spend time/money learning new dev skills. Even if they do want to learn new dev skills, LLMs can provide personalized tutoring, so there's less incentive to buy a paid course.
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- ·Job insecurity makes developers reluctant to invest in learning
- ·LLMs offer free personalized tutoring instead of paid courses
- ·Comeau: AI is the main driver of sales decline
- ·Fear: uncertain if developer jobs exist in a few months
- ·Reduced incentive to spend time or money on new skills
- ·Substitution: LLMs replace paid courses with personalized tutoring
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explains mechanism → My third course, Whimsical Animations, is on track to sell roughly one-third as many copies as a typical course launch.Josh W. Comeau · Simon Willison's Weblogexplains mechanism → Sales on my two existing courses are also down significantly from last year.Josh W. Comeau · Simon Willison's Weblogexplains mechanism → Other course creators are seeing the same pattern: revenue down 50%+, less engagement, and audiences switching to LLMs that scrape and regurgitate creators' work without consent or compensation.Josh W. Comeau · Simon Willison's Weblog