AI takeover the plugin industry

[SampleScience]

I've always been skeptical of all the AI hype out there, but now it's different. What I'm seeing and what I've tested shows me that making a quality audio plugin isn't hard anymore. As long as you have the idea, you can make it without any programming/scripting/UI design skills.

I have to be honest, I'm shocked! I knew it was coming, but I thought we had another 10 years or so ahead of us. Now, I think we have 2 years at best.

I've been making a living creating plugins since 2015 and it's been great. Making a living from my passion for sound design, UI design, and tech felt like living the dream. But now the dream is over and I have to wake up.

Even sample-based instruments from acoustic instruments aren't safe anymore. During the last 2 years, I've spent a lot of time learning how to do this and now I don't see the point anymore.

More recently, I thought about increasing my skills by learning HISE scripting inside-out, but seeing that people can just take a screenshot of my plugin's page, paste it into ChatGPT, ask it to create a prompt to clone it in Codex, and get a decent clone in a matter of minutes, I think it's time to call it quits. In a matter of hours, the same plugin can be polished to the point where the user will have a customized plugin for their own needs.

I can't compete with that. It's just impossible. No matter how hard I work on a plugin, if it becomes a success, it will be reverse-engineered.

So what's left? Hope.

Hope that at some point the AI industry will collapse because it's not a viable business model. If that happens, I'm pretty sure everything will go back to how it was and AI plugins will disappear like a bad dream.

I've done a lot of experiments with local LLMs and they are nowhere near the frontier models. Fairly close depending on how you use them, but they break quickly the longer the conversation gets. And the results are inconsistent. Even with a $10,000+ computer setup like the one I have.

The overabundance of new plugin "companies" and the lack of editorial filtering from the media outlets that cover the industry make it much harder to break through and get actual sales.

So here are the questions: has the AI takeover affected your business income? Can you see it in your stats? Or is it business as usual? Are there solutions I'm overlooking? Things that are obvious? Let me know.

[David Healey]

@SampleScience said in AI takeover the plugin industry:

a quality audio plugin

How do you know the quality if you can't read/understand the code?

@SampleScience said in AI takeover the plugin industry:

So here are the questions: has the AI takeover affected your business income? Can you see it in your stats? Or is it business as usual? Are there solutions I'm overlooking? Things that are obvious? Let me know.

No it hasn't affected my business - at least not negatively. Most of the mass spammed AI plugins out there are slop anyway.

It has opened up another revenue stream for me because I've had a few requests to review other people's AI generated code - as the AI gets better though I expect this to be less important.

The software is not the product, it has never been the product, everyone who sells open source software knows this. And this is why the most pirated software companies in the world are also the most successful.

The software is a part of the package of value the user gets. The reason they pay for it is all the other stuff that comes with that: bug fixes, feature updates, secure downloads, tech support, trust, reputation, the warm feeling you get from supporting a small business, etc.

All those things are only enhanced by AI. The more slop that's out there the more your products will stand out - even if your products are created by AI, you can provide all that other stuff that fly-by-night "developers" aren't providing.

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey said in AI takeover the plugin industry:

How do you know the quality if you can't read/understand the code?

I think you place too much emphasis on the creator reading and/or understanding the code. That will become a thing of the past very quickly. In some areas, it has already.

@David-Healey said in AI takeover the plugin industry:

The more slop that's out there the more your products will stand out

What concerns me is that whole plugin market will collapse because people will be able to build whatever they want whenever they want it. We will survive by delivering what AI slop and vibe-coders can't. Whatever that turns out to be.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in AI takeover the plugin industry:

What concerns me is that whole plugin market will collapse because people will be able to build whatever they want whenever they want it

Maybe, but I don't think most people will do this. Also in the professional realm there are standards. If everyone is using different software it's hard to work as a team on a single project - this is why every studio still uses ProTools instead of one of the many better options.

Something will replace sample libraries, probably AI. I always thought it would be physical modelling but that seems to be a dead end after 40 years. It doesn't really matter what it is, some will bail out and some will adapt, it's always the same.

[SampleScience]

@David-Healey said in AI takeover the plugin industry:

@SampleScience said in AI takeover the plugin industry:

a quality audio plugin

How do you know the quality if you can't read/understand the code?

Because it gives the sound and results users want. And it's also stable; bug fixes can be provided by AI now. I'm the first to be shocked and surprised by this! I didn't see it coming.

Now, what I see is a new phenomenon: YouTubers who create their own plugins and give them away or sell them, effectively bypassing plugin developers in the process.

Worse, if they want to, they can copy a cool plugin concept that they received in their email inbox, clone it using AI, and sell it to their audience without anyone between them and their customer base.

Business-wise, it makes much more sense for them. For developers, it's a new nightmare.

My income is now slashed by 50%, and my traffic is a third of what it used to be. Even if I release a quality freebie, it doesn't mean anything anymore. It has much less impact than it used to.

[SampleScience]

@dannytaurus Love your work by the way. You did amazing things with Maize Sampler.

[Felix W]

@SampleScience
I don't know how to put it, I just feel lost. AI seems to have invaded every industry. In my country, tens of millions, or even more, have lost their jobs in recent years. Then, they all stayed at home, using AI to make videos, write code, and build websites or apps to earn money. Ultimately, all that money went to the giant companies because only they provided the platform, servers, domain names, and other resources.

[dannytaurus]

@SampleScience You were the person who inspired me to start!

I've used your plugins from way back. I built my first Maize plugin around 2016 but didn't follow up on it.

Then I saw you included in a Gumroad article about creators who had made over $100,000 selling digital products on the platform. That really inspired me to start properly with plugins and now Meat Beats has been my living for 3 years now.

I'm very concerned about the future. I don't think AI is going away.

[SampleScience]

@dannytaurus said in AI takeover the plugin industry:

@SampleScience You were the person who inspired me to start!

I've used your plugins from way back. I built my first Maize plugin around 2016 but didn't follow up on it.

Then I saw you included in a Gumroad article about creators who had made over $100,000 selling digital products on the platform. That really inspired me to start properly with plugins and now Meat Beats has been my living for 3 years now.

I'm very concerned about the future. I don't think AI is going away.

That's so cool to hear! It made my day!

I'm also very concerned about the future because of the disruption caused by AI pretty much everywhere. It's changing the way people find my business, how they learn about updates and new releases.

On the plus side, I've never had better feedback from my customers and after 10+ years I have a loyal following, but for how long?

That's the question!

Personally, I'm currently moving from software to reviewing hardware under a new brand name. I want to stay in that industry for as long as possible as I don't see myself doing anything else.