Brewing brand love: how AI startups are reaching subscribers through coffee — the cappuccinos are camouflage.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
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    21 hours ago

    asked via touchscreen if they’re Perplexity Pro subscribers. A “yes” earns them 50% off drinks; a “no” triggers a QR code for a one-month free trial of the $20 service.

    Look at how desperate they are to get a return before the bubble bursts. It’s hilarious.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      It’s like the dotcom bubble in that everyone is striking out in every which direction on this neew tech, hoping they’re the last man standing.

      This one is far worse though. Not sure how I’ll survive it, but I sense my IT career is over.

      • 1984@lemmy.today
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        1 hour ago

        People will be very surprised when they are wrong about this, and the IT field actually grows because of Ai.

        Hang in there, I think you will be fine.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        I sense my IT career is over

        Me too. Honestly, even if it never deflates I think long term I’m out.

        Is there anything we can do with these skills other than enrich billionaire tech bro assholes? I tried very briefly tonight to look for nonprofits that are looking for software people and saw nothing but search engine mismatches.

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          All I got is to start a small business consulting, fixing and installing for small business. Did that on the side 12-years ago and it was amazing how fast business owners jumped when offered services for a reasonable price.

          We could go on-call for a monthly fee. $200/mo. per customer stacks quickly. But you have to get a feel for your customers, set expectations and fire the skinflints. If you don’t have people skills, this is a non-starter. I got people skills, no business skills.

          Been there, done that, know myself, not motivated enough. Give me a time and place to be, give me work, give me a paycheck and benefits, I’ll knock it out the park. But if I gotta get out of bed and knock doors, again, I got the people skills, but I can’t self motivate.

        • ronigami@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          Yes, the market right now is bent toward large existing players. There is room for competition for Lyft and Uber for example. If you can find workarounds for regulatory obstacles.

      • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        the dotcom bubble saw us build out thousands of miles of fiber that didn’t get lit for a decade. still was fine tho after that time.

        tell me aibros, how many of those AI specific accelerator cards will be useful in a decade?

        lol

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          Worked at company, forget the name (Williams something?) but they were the peak IT when I started my career in Tulsa, 2000 or so. They were laying fiber, but mostly lighting dark fiber. They were the future! Best employer in town! Crashed and burned, hard.

          But as you said, those resources were laid to be exploited. Guess whoever figures out how to exploit the coming AI wreckage will lead the next wave of tech. Is that even going to be possible?!

          Funny story; My camp is outside a town of 900 souls, most of those in the surrounding countryside. The ISP just ran fiber! There’s a stub-out at the end of my “block”! Totally uninhabited but for my weekly visits, but imagine that. Fiber everywhere now.

          • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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            37 minutes ago

            But as you said, those resources were laid to be exploited. Guess whoever figures out how to exploit the coming AI wreckage will lead the next wave of tech. Is that even going to be possible?!

            that’s the thing, gpus age like hot piss on a texas summer day. gonna be very interesting to see how these corpses are picked over.

      • MangoCats@feddit.it
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        4 hours ago

        I sense my IT career is over.

        The IT grunt work is going to get 10x easier (need 1/10th the head count for grunt work).

        If you do more than grunt work, as most “computer” people actually do, your job should be safe from AI for a while.