A growing chorus of web development educators is reporting that generative AI has significantly harmed their ability to earn a living and maintain their work’s value.
According to a blog post by Baldur Bjarnason, who has worked across development, education, and media, most of his training and education projects have ceased. He writes that “most of my peers who had been selling courses and training were shutting down their businesses. The demand for web dev ebooks had cratered.”
Axel Rauschmayer, a prolific writer on JavaScript and TypeScript, reported a stark financial collapse. According to the source, his book sales income—which was enough to live on in 2024—dropped to zero by 2026. Traffic to his free online books increased dramatically, but almost entirely from AI crawlers, eliminating ad revenue. He decided to take his blog and books offline to prevent unauthorized use by AI companies.
Course creators and tutorial producers face similar challenges. Josh W. Comeau, who creates online courses and interactive web technology tutorials, reported that revenue dropped 50% or more, with fewer people engaging with his content as they turn to language models instead. Kyle Cook from Web Dev Simplified stated that his YouTube programming tutorial views and income dropped approximately 50% year-over-year, making full-time content creation unsustainable.
Salma Alam-Naylor, formerly in Developer Relations, described AI as killing developer education. She noted that developers are using chatbots for learning rather than gathering in online spaces for authentic collaboration. Carefully crafted curricula are “routinely stolen and regurgitated by predictive algorithms,” she writes. She eventually left her public-facing role for a lower-paid developer position without public exposure.
Rachel Andrew, a renowned technical writer, highlighted additional problems in publishing. Editors must apply extra scrutiny to catch subtle inaccuracies introduced by AI tools, which can be “very confidently wrong.” She questions whether AI actually increases productivity, noting that perceived gains often shift work onto editors, other team members, or readers, reducing overall quality while making individual contributors feel more productive.
Andrew argues that many AI automation tasks could be accomplished with existing non-AI tools and coding, and questions the justification for the financial, environmental, and human costs of AI when productivity gains are marginal.
These educators emphasize the broader impact: the loss of accessible, expert-created educational content and the erosion of human-centered learning communities in web development.
Key facts
- Baldur Bjarnason reports that training projects from him and peers have stopped and demand for web dev ebooks has collapsed
- Axel Rauschmayer’s book sales income fell from sustainable (2024) to zero (2026), with AI crawlers replacing human traffic
- Course creator Josh W. Comeau reports 50%+ revenue decline as developers switch to language models
- Kyle Cook’s YouTube programming tutorial income dropped approximately 50% in one year
- Salma Alam-Naylor left her Developer Relations role due to AI’s impact on learning communities and educator value
- Rachel Andrew notes that AI introduces subtle inaccuracies that require extra editorial scrutiny and may shift work rather than reduce it