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Argues that AI agents in enterprises face adoption problems, not just capability gaps, emphasizing the need for low-friction workflows and habit formation over raw task completion.
The article examines how friction is being eliminated in digital experiences and AI companions while concentrated in physical infrastructure, creating three distinct economies of effort that reshape labor, loneliness, and value.
The author rants about the clunkiness of using SSH and VPN to access university HPC clusters for computational chemistry, arguing that the friction discourages independent researchers from doing work and advocates for local computations.
The article reflects on the February hype around pre-configured OpenClaw agents as a business, reporting on a practitioner who successfully runs a setup service for non-technical clients. It suggests the durable business model is ongoing management rather than one-time setup sales.
Armin Ronacher reflects on how the shared language of a software project — the common understanding of concepts, boundaries, and invariants — lives in documentation, code, and conversations, and how the friction of coordination synchronizes people, a process that AI agents might disrupt.
A reflection on why AI agents often fail to gain adoption: they force users to switch contexts, creating friction that outweighs perceived value. The author suggests designing agents to integrate directly into existing workflows.