Last weekend I was helping a Malaysian friend transfer his domain to a new registrar. The domain was managed by the web design firm that built his site. So I had to do something I hate. Talk to a stranger.
My friend created a group chat, added me, then added the guy from the firm. It was Saturday, so of course I got no reply. Then on Monday, the guy added a “General Line” account to the chat. And the General Line opened with: “Zhenyi — …”
Turns out, I never had to talk to a stranger after all. Because they just copy-pasted responses from their AI and sent them to me. I don’t think it was a bot account either. Because otherwise he wouldn’t have needed to wait until Monday to add it.
This is probably how a lot of small “IT” companies do business these days. You subscribe to an AI plan. Help your tech-illiterate customers with things like registering a domain or designing a website. Then charge a monthly fee for vague things like “SEO” and “maintenance”. Charge them 20-50 times what it costs you. Then let the AI do the work.
If all you care about is making money, this seems like an easy way to do it. Don’t try to make money from tech people. Don’t make $5 apps to sell on the App Store. Make money from normies. Normies don’t know what things cost. Be their meat proxy.
Actually, why even keep the meat? Just hook the WhatsApp account up to an API. Give the AI an SMTP and IMAP account and let it chase the registrar itself. Add a prompt that says reply in broken English, don’t use em dashes.
Why didn’t I think of this? Brb opening an IT business in Malaysia. What? You need to have a bunch of existing tech-illiterate customers to pull this off? Dang.