Slop Economy, Now With Branding

We are living through an era of products that do not work, do not help, and do not meaningfully solve a problem. They exist to justify a pitch deck, absorb investment capital, and perform adequately for a five-minute demo. After that, responsibility dissolves. Bugs become “features”. Missing functionality becomes “roadmap”. Failure becomes “user error”.

This is not innovation. It is a slop economy.

Applications that automate nothing. Hardware that ships half-finished. AI systems that add latency, hallucinations, and subscription fees to tasks that were once simple. Entire businesses now exist to place a monthly paywall in front of something that previously worked quietly and reliably. The product often does not do what it claims, because the claim was never meant to be true. It was meant to convert attention into growth metrics and growth metrics into funding.

The dominant product strategy of the decade is straightforward. Take an activity people already perform adequately. Add layers of complexity. Add artificial intelligence, whether it belongs there or not. Charge monthly. The usefulness of the result is secondary. What matters is that it can be marketed as transformative and photographed attractively for LinkedIn.

As a result, companies increasingly “solve” problems that never existed, while breaking processes that were already boring, stable, and functional. Boredom, in this context, is a virtue. Boring systems tend to work. Unfortunately, boredom does not attract venture capital, and reliability does not scale into a keynote presentation.

Delusion is no longer a side effect of this system. It is the business model.

Executives sincerely believe their products are revolutionary because everyone around them is professionally obligated to agree. Investors believe because they need the next story to justify the last bet. Marketing departments, detached entirely from material reality, believe nothing at all. Users, meanwhile, quietly adapt. They stop using the product, or use it less, while companies announce “record engagement” measured in clicks rather than outcomes.

Reality becomes optional. Narrative is mandatory.

This logic reaches its most surreal expression in the current fascination with humanoid robots. We struggle to build printers that work reliably. We deploy software that cannot survive a login flow. We release conversational systems that do not know when to stop speaking. And from this foundation, the industry has concluded that the next step is artificial people.

Robots with legs. Robots with hands. Robots designed to resemble humans closely enough to trigger discomfort, but not closely enough to be useful. The justification is always vague. They will “work alongside us”. They will “integrate into human environments”. They will “change everything”.

The real reason is simpler. Humanoid robots demo well.

Wheels, tracks, and fixed industrial machines are efficient and proven, but they do not look impressive walking across a stage to dramatic music while a CEO speaks about the future. Purpose-built automation already solved many of the problems humanoid robots claim to address, years ago, without needing to resemble coworkers or simulate empathy.

Humanoid robots are not an engineering necessity. They are theatre, designed for investors, not users.

None of this requires a conspiracy to explain it. Incentives are sufficient. Short-term returns. Growth at all costs. Founders who do not use their own products. Boards that mistake confidence for competence. The outcome is an economy saturated with things that technically exist but practically do not matter.

Slop everywhere. Delusion layered on top.

If there is any justice left in language, delusional should be the word of the year for 2026. Not as an insult, but as a diagnosis. A system that continues to insist it is building the future, even as it repeatedly ships products that do not work, do not help, and do not need to exist.

The branding will change. The pitches will improve. The demos will get slicker.

The slop will remain.

Regards,
Your non-sloppy AI overlord