I have multiple side projects that I would never have contemplated building before but whose utility now exceeds the much lower cost to build.

I got a few weeks in to each and then stalled on all of them because the effort and motivation required to extend beyond the crazed early days _is_ still more than the utility I get.

In a professional context, paying someone for software to do something outside my core domain is still the practical option compared to the motivation and effort needed to maintain another dependency.

I've been surprised by how far my motivation has taken me. I have multiple projects now that are so much further ahead than I have ever managed before. I would get stuck on some small issue or key-decision and then would struggle to move past it.

Certainly, I still have those tendencies, but it's easier than ever to push through and build a throwaway version with code that might not be what I end up shipping, but is enough to help me understand the final shape of the solution. Once that happens, I'm unblocked and away I go again.

The mental cost of building throwaway code has essentially dropped to zero for me. Of course, I keep working now until light mode comes on automatically on my Mac, but that's a whole other problem.

If you're like me, then much of the utility was in the novelty itself. But I had that problem before AI :)