Comment by threetonesun
2 days ago
You could go back in time and say this about jQuery. Tailwind's future was always questionable because CSS is growing in new and amazing ways, and wrapping the complexity of new CSS features into helper classes isn't really a sustainable model.
That said if someone wants a business model, figure out a way to get paid to get AI to make UIs using newer CSS features, because right now it's quite terrible at it.
The difference is that jQuery was replaced by other libraries, while Tailwind grows in popularity, but due to AI its creator doesn’t benefit from this popularity as much as before
jQuery was essentially replaced by JavaScript (and browser compatibility) getting better, but it continued to exist and grow because it was the de facto way to DOM manipulation, especially if you had to copy and paste off of Stack Overflow, or roll out a framework based UI.
Tailwind being the default choice for AI UIs is not that different, it can continue to grow in usage but the fundamental need for Tailwind has passed.
The difference is jquery went away because better things replaced it (in javascript). If the fundamental need for tailwind has passed why is it's usage growing? It's more that the problem solved by the paid portion of tailwind is now solved by AI.