[alanb99]

Couple of other anecdotal data points:

1. Guy I know who is an exec coach says that a chatbot can do a lot of what he does. 2. I am absolutely seeing lots of people asking ChatGPT a question and treating its answer as the truth.

So I can well believe that, in an age where you can get a quick answer to anything for free, that the market for books is collapsing.

Having said that, I also suspect that many of these self-help books are effectively a blog post stretched out over hundreds of pages, so maybe a decline in their sales is no bad thing.

[latexr]

> I also suspect that many of these self-help books are effectively a blog post stretched out over hundreds of pages, so maybe a decline in their sales is no bad thing.

You suspect right. I usually compare them to a pamphlet, but a blog post works too. They’re mostly one core idea padded with interminable stories to illustrate the point. Instead of wasting your money and time on the book, search YouTube for a talk the author has given about it (the more popular the book, the more of the same talk there will be) and watch that. It’ll hit all of the major points.

[prepend]

Executive coaches always kind of perplexed me. I’ve tried a few ofer the years and while it was nice to chat with someone smart I found their advice was pretty hit or miss as I read a lot and most of the basic stuff seemed familiar.

So I always wondered how they stayed in business and that they seemed at risk for disruption if anyone cared about their market.

So I guessed that maybe they’re for people who don’t want to spend time finding and reading.

I also was only spending $250/hour so maybe the really good ones cost much more.

[fundad]

I agree. And the funny thing is the most enjoyable part of LLMs is it's nice to chat with someone smart.