The Evolution of the Modern Economy (As Told by Tools and Roles) | Discussion

Part 1 of 5 in the “You Are the Stack” series

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we got here — not just in tech, but in work, culture, identity. Somewhere along the way, we stopped playing one role and started playing all of them. AI didn’t start that fire — but it poured gasoline on it.

This is Part 1 of a 5-part series exploring that shift. It’s a think piece, but also a lived one — written while building EveryDev.ai, a platform that couldn’t have existed in any other era. It’s shaped by AI, built for devs who work with AI, and infused with this convergence I’ve been feeling for years but only recently started to name.

But before we talk about where we are, we need to talk about how we got here.

⏳ A Quick Tour Through Time

For most of human history, economies were local, simple, and slow. You made things with your hands — shoes, tools, bread — and traded them nearby. No logos. No metrics. No startup jargon. Just craft and community.

Then came industrialization. Steam, steel, railroads. Factories and global shipping lanes. We stopped making things for our village and started making them for the world.

And that’s when the roles started to split.

Makers made.
Sellers sold.
Buyers bought.
Consumers consumed.

It felt stable. Predictable. Like progress.

Until it didn’t.

🛠 The Maker Era

The 20th century exploded with war — and necessity.

World War I. Then World War II. We needed tanks, planes, rations, weapons. So we built supply chains, manufacturing systems, standardized tooling. The goal wasn’t just survival — it was production supremacy. And it worked.

When the wars ended, that capacity didn’t go away — it got retooled. Military surplus turned into domestic abundance. The engine kept running — we just changed what it made.

Tech focus: Manufacturing, logistics, hardware
Mindset: Build more stuff.

🛒 The Seller Era

Building stuff was no longer the problem. Now we needed people to want it. Enter the golden age of selling: TV commercials. Mail-order catalogs. Billboard culture. We sold not just goods, but dreams. Cars meant freedom. Dishwashers meant progress. A refrigerator was modernity.

Tech focus: Retail, advertising, distribution
Mindset: Move more stuff.

Advertising scaled into its own industrial force — one that could manufacture demand at scale.

💳 The Buyer Era

Soon, we weren’t just selling abundance — we were living it. Suburbs grew. Shopping malls replaced town centers. Credit cards made it easy to buy now and pay later. Consumption became identity. And when our homes filled up, we rented extra space — storage units for our forgotten things. Buying had become so normalized that not having room for your stuff was just another subscription.

Tech focus: E-commerce, credit, logistics
Mindset: Own more stuff, even if you can’t afford it.

Then 2008 hit. The crash. The correction. The overreach. But the craving didn’t go away — it just looked for a new outlet. That endorphin rush of buying? We found a replacement.

👤 The Participant Era

Right on cue, the platforms arrived. Google didn’t just answer your questions — it learned from your behavior. YouTube invited you to upload. Twitter made your thoughts public. Uber turned your car into labor. Suddenly, you weren’t just consuming — you were participating.

You don’t own the car — you are the driver.
You don’t write the algorithm — you train it.
You don’t just watch — you generate.

The dopamine hit shifted from checkout carts to like counts. From owning the thing to being seen doing the thing.

Tech focus: Platforms, attention, behavioral data
Mindset: Be part of the system.

We weren’t paid. But we were hooked.

✍️ The Creator Era

Eventually, we started asking: What if I owned what I contributed? The Creator Economy wasn’t a rebellion — it was a mutation. A refusal to keep feeding the system without leverage.

We didn’t just want participation points — we wanted ownership, income, community. Think:

Indie devs shipping AI tools on the weekend.
Substack writers building media businesses.
GitHub contributors with more reach than startups.
Notion template sellers. Gumroad makers.
Devs deploying solo projects with real revenue.

Tech focus: SaaS, monetization platforms, LLM tooling
Mindset: Own your output.

This was a new kind of rush: not buying, not liking — but shipping. Impact. Autonomy. Tiny empires.

📉 The Linear Model Breaks

For a long time, the economy looked like this:

[Makers] → [Sellers] → [Buyers] → [Consumers]

Each role clean. Each step sequential.

But now?

You don’t move through the system anymore.
You loop through it. Remix it. Stack it.
Sometimes, you are the whole system.

And AI has thrown the whole thing into overdrive.

🤔 So What’s Next?

This is where it gets fuzzy. We’re standing at the edge of something new — but no one’s named it yet.

Is it:

🧬 The Synth Era

Where AI becomes the glue — blending creation, commerce, and consumption into one seamless loop?

🧱 The Sovereign Era

Where people reclaim ownership — of their data, audiences, tools, and time?

🌋 The Collapse-and-Reshape Era

Where the system buckles, and something slower and more human emerges?

We don’t know yet. But we know what’s behind us. And it’s not coming back.

🧭 Recap: The Evolution in One Table

Era	Driving Force	Mindset	Tech Focus
🛠 Maker	War, industrialization	Build more stuff	Manufacturing, logistics
🛒 Seller	Surplus, peace	Move more stuff	Retail, advertising
💳 Buyer	Credit, consumerism	Own more stuff	E-commerce, credit systems
👤 Participant	Platforms, networks, data	Be part of the system	Platforms, attention, AI
✍️ Creator	Tools + independence urge	Own your output	SaaS, monetization, LLM tools

👋 Up Next: Part 2 — You Are the Stack

In the next post, I’ll break down what happens when all of these roles collapse inward — and you, the individual, become the entire supply chain.

You prompt it.
You build it.
You launch it.
You use it.
You sell it.
You support it.

You’re not in the system anymore. You are the system.

Thanks for reading!