When making gets easy, the bar moves

A few years ago, a decent short video took a camera, some lights and a person who knew how to edit. Now it takes a phone and ten minutes. Templates do the cuts. Music is a tap away.

For anyone with something to show, a bakery in Manama, a tutor in Riyadh, a photographer starting out, this feels like a gift, and in one sense it is. The work that used to be hard is now easy.

But it is easy for everyone at once. The feed fills with competent videos. Clean, bright, well paced, and almost indistinguishable from each other.

What did not get easier is the viewer's side. She still has one evening, one thumb, one small pool of patience. Her attention does not grow because there is more to watch. Her trust does not stretch because production got cheaper. Those two things were always scarce, and a flood of easy material makes them scarcer.

So the gift comes with a bill. When anyone can make the ordinary version in minutes, the ordinary version stops earning anything. It is no longer a sign of effort or care, because it no longer takes either.

The question for the maker changes. It used to be whether you could produce something good enough to post. Now it is whether what you post is more useful, more specific, more honestly yours than what anyone else could produce by lunchtime. If it is not, the respectful choice is to keep it and not ask for anyone's evening.

Every tool that lowers the cost of yesterday's work raises the standard for whatever comes next.