The End of Products
- Layla Foord
- Apr 18
- 3 min read
Updated: May 9
We’ve been trained to expect value in a box.A subscription. A feature. A download.Something to click, to hold, to name.
Products gave us control. Predictability. Clarity.
But what if that’s not what we need anymore?
What if the very idea of a “product”, something fixed, packaged, sold is starting to dissolve?
What happens in a post-product world?
Spotify. Duolingo. Google.
All brilliant in their time.
But they’re artefacts of a world where value had to be contained in an app, a playlist, a course.
Now, AI is making containment optional.
Instead of pre-built tools, we get fluid systems.Instead of features, we get emergent responses.Instead of products, we get presence.
We don’t need to open an app.
The system already knows what we need, and it’s ready to meet us there.
Spotify becomes silence, then sound.
You no longer browse genres.
The music finds you, emotionally, physiologically, atmospherically.
An AI senses your mood, your pulse, your patterns and generates audio in real time.
Not a playlist. A score.
Composed for this exact moment of you.
Duolingo becomes dialogue.
There’s no badge, no leaderboard.
You’re simply in conversation with a voice that notices your hesitations, adapts to your grammar, and pauses when you fumble.
Language learning isn’t gamified.
It’s embodied.
You feel the language before you learn it.
Google becomes resonance.
You don’t type a query.
You think, wonder, feel, and the insight emerges.
Gently.
Fluently.
Without distraction.
The search bar dissolves.
The answer arrives in rhythm with your need.
In this future, tools disappear.
We move from apps to ambient intelligence.
From content delivery to contextual emergence.
From packaging to presence.
And when the middle layer disappears, what’s left?
Taste - the ability to sense what’s true, valuable, or aligned.
Presence - the ability to notice what’s missing.
Curation - not of content, but of consciousness.
Pattern fluency - knowing what’s next without needing to be told.
We stop designing products.
We start designing relationships - between data and meaning, between self and system, between desire and delivery.
This isn’t abstract.
It’s already happening.
Musicians don’t need Spotify.
They need a listener and a protocol.
In a post-product world, a song doesn’t need to be uploaded to a central catalogue.
It streams directly to the listener via a decentralised mesh embedded in AI-curated moments, or generated collaboratively in real time.
Payment flows instantly from listener to artist.
Not monthly.
Not bundled.
Not platform-mediated.
Just a micropayment mesh, tokenised or not — that supports every moment of resonance.
Spotify isn’t the pipeline anymore.
Resonance is.
Creators don’t need YouTube.
They need trust and alignment.
Content is published into dynamic, reputation-indexed feeds.
Not pushed by an algorithm, but carried by affinity.
Value flows through embedded, open protocols.
Tips. Taps. Ongoing presence-based support.
What used to be content becomes conversation.
What used to be advertising becomes shared intent.
Your ideas aren’t hosted.
They’re entangled.
Creation becomes a live relationship.
Distribution becomes a dynamic web.
Payment becomes a pulse, not a payout.
And this is where it gets uncomfortable.
In a post-product world, a new class divide is forming.
Not around income.
Around augmentation.
On one side, people who know how to work with AI.
Not just prompt it, but partner with it.
They move faster.
Think deeper.
Build smarter.
On the other, people locked in human-time workflows.
Repetitive. Physical. Emotionally draining.
No lift.
No leverage.
No interface.
The new divide may not be knowledge versus labour.
It may be cognitive leverage versus latency.
The risk isn’t just automation.
It’s inequality of thought.
So what comes after products?
Maybe not another app.
Maybe what comes next is co-evolution.
Tools that dissolve into context.
People who learn to design conditions, not just features.
Cultures that measure resonance, not just productivity.
We don’t need more products.
We need more presence.
But we cannot wait 20 years.
We waited too long with social media.
We let systems shape us before we ever shaped them.
We cannot afford to do that again.
This time, the interfaces are dissolving now.
The systems are being trained now.
The patterns are being set now.
So the real question isn’t, What’s the next product?
It’s, who shapes the conditions?
And who gets shaped by them?
-Layla
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