Why I stopped making coding tutorials

Hey, what's going on guys? So, a video came across my feed the other day from Maximillian's channel, someone who I followed and and have respected for years. And it was a response to a smaller creator saying that nobody makes coding tutorials on YouTube anymore. And in that video, he specifically mentioned my channel. He mentioned Max's channel and some others as well. And I agree 100% with Max's response. I almost didn't make this video because I I don't want to just repeat what he said, but I do want to kind of just give my own take, my own perspective on the whole YouTube tutorial situation because a lot of people have asked me about it. So, let's talk about it. [music] So, before we jump into the video, I just want to let you know about today's sponsor. So, I think we've gotten way too used to just giving up our personal information and trusting every platform that we use. 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But like that original video said, channels like mine just don't put out tutorials the way that we used to. And a lot of channels that did back then are are now gone and haven't uploaded in months or even years. And the truth is, it's not just that nobody is making tutorials. Nobody's watching them. Uh the last big tutorial I did was about two months ago. It was a 4-hour vanilla JavaScript project, uh where we used, you know, classes and modules and had encapsulation and real fundamentals. Um I even added it to my modern JavaScript course and it didn't even break 20,000 views on a channel with over 2 million subs. So I actually unpublished it. And the reality is that long- form educational content that that I love creating, it just doesn't get the love that it used to. Um, you know, that was 2 weeks of work for that tutorial and it was probably a few hundred. You know, YouTube ad revenue is honestly offensive at this point, which is why uh a lot of creators have to rely on sponsorships. And it's not just me. I talked to a lot of of developer YouTubers who came up around the same time that I did, and they all say the same thing. their analytics are just completely in the toilet over the past couple years. And I love making tutorials, but people don't understand that we don't just hit record and then wing it. There's a lot of planning that goes into it. We need to build a project from scratch, just like you would, and also figure out how to explain each concept clearly. And teaching this stuff is really difficult. And when you put that much work into um into a tutorial and nobody watches it, it's it's honestly pretty depressing. So that's why I've kind of shifted towards videos on YouTube that don't take me two or three weeks to create, but I can still share my experience and my advice. Now, why don't people watch tutorials anymore? And of course, this is just, you know, my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. But first reason, I think that just overall as a society, we've become just kind of uh like tick- tockrained. People don't want to sit down and focus for hours anymore. They just want quick fixes and summaries. uh just tell me what to do. You know, where back in the day you could make a 10 or 15 part series and people would actually watch all the videos and the videos would be like an hour a piece. Now you're lucky if you get 3 minutes on a on a 10-minute video. Uh the truth is, and I know I'm speaking in in a general sense here, but I feel like people want the feeling of learning. They don't want to actually do the work. Second, YouTube culture itself, I honestly hate what it's become. the the fake excitement, the stupid thumbnails, the you know, captions like this changes everything. No, it doesn't. You're just trying to get clicks and it's it's so obvious, but somehow it still works. Um, I feel like the algorithm doesn't reward honesty. It rewards dopamine. Third, there's just fewer people learning to code. 2020 was my biggest year ever. I actually made over a million dollars, which is beyond my wildest dreams than anything I would ever imagine making growing up when, you know, I grew up with nothing. Uh, but people were stuck at home and they wanted to learn new skills. They had the time and that wave kind of carried through for a couple years, but now that's gone. And I think the biggest reason is AI. Uh, used correctly, AI is incredible. I use it every single day. In fact, my last video was about how I think people should learn, which is a mix of traditional learning and using AI as kind of a a study buddy. Uh, but what I don't like is the all the vibe coding. And I don't mean AI assisted development. I mean shipping code that you don't understand. And uh AI doesn't make you a developer. You know, understanding the code does. uh and I'm actually building an a coding with AI course now where we manage you know context and use sub agents and test properly and understand the code that we're shipping just kind of giving you advice on how to create a project using AI the right way or at least what I see as the right way and human human taught uh content still matters because when I teach something I've actually struggled with it I've built real projects with it I've lost days debugging. I've learned what matters and what doesn't. AI can't it can give you information, but it can't really give you judgment or experience. It can't really tell you, you know, skip this, you'll never use it. And it definitely doesn't care if you succeed or not. So, yeah, that's why you don't see as as many tutorials from me anymore. As far as what I'm doing, I'm trying to adapt. So, my team and I are actually building a new interactive learning platform um which is mostly free. In addition to video courses, you'll have guided learning paths, real projects, an AI integrated uh tutor, and it actually reflects how I teach. And you'll even earn achievements, track progress, learn by doing, and this isn't some side project. We're putting some serious time into this, and the MVP should be ready in a couple months or so. As for YouTube, I'm not going anywhere. I I'll keep doing crash courses on major technologies. I'll keep doing discussion and advice videos. Um Dennis Ivy is now my business partner. He'll also be releasing videos. He actually has a a Tanstack start crash course coming up any day now. What probably won't come back is the the random project tutorials like build X with Y um where it was 2 3 4 hours long. Um the idea is simple. It's discussion and advice and crash courses here and then deeper learning on the platform and then optional paid extras if you want them. Like I said, the platform will be like 90% free. Um, and then courses will still exist on Udemy and traverse media.com. Um, the coding with AI course drops in the next month or or so. Uh, you know, nobody stays on top forever doing the same thing. You either need to adapt or you just kind of fade out. And and we're trying to adapt. And for those of you who've who have watched the videos, bought the courses, and supported me over the years, I I truly thank you. You know, you've given my family a life that I could never have imagined back when, you know, I was a junkie on the street 20 years ago. Uh, and I'm talking to anyone who has bought a course, who has liked a video, or even watched one full video of mine. And I I appreciate you and I'll see you