You are right on that. I just miss the way that just normal dudes could just build something and it having a good chance of becoming INSANELY viral overnight
Back in the day for everything that "went viral" there were 100 "normal dudes" who had a marketing plan that involved "going viral" but it didn't happen.
People are about to learn in the AI age that: (1) if you speed up execution or the appearance of execution you run into the difficultly of marketing more quickly, and (2) Putting "AI" in your subject line will just make people close their earflaps the same way that "NFT" did two years ago.
Sure it is tuff and most people won't succeed, but with hustle and imagination some people are going to make it today, but the "life hacks" that work are either not generalizable (you are not going to transform into a fox) or trade secrets.