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Slop Is Not New

October 30, 2026 · 1 min read

A 16-bit night stage buried under tutorial popups. "Press A to jump." "Great job! You walked." "Great question! Jumping lets you go up." The front one recaps what you've learned so far and asks if you'd like jumping explained in more detail, with two buttons, Yes and Yes, in more detail. Skip tutorial is locked.

AI reinvented the “Speed vs. Quality” discussion because there are new ways of feeling like you are going fast without any taste or depth

If you do nothing else today, watch this gem from 15 years ago

SLOP is not new, I love how Sequelitis masterfully debunks the “how to play your game” sloppiness:

  1. Be as intentional about what you want to build as about how you want to build it
  2. Trust your customer, no extreme hand-holding/over-explaining SLOP
  3. Make your customer feel something while experiencing your product
  4. Design and expect a journey of growth and learning while using your product
  5. If your customer is human, no amount of tasteless AI outputs can replace your judgement

So yeah, to defeat SLOP the moat is to be as human as you can be.