Reflection on Yenslife's Blog

Do We Really Need More Platforms?

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 02:03:01 +0800

Do We Really Need More Platforms?

(The following story was originally written in Chinese and translated into English with the help of AI. Some parts are true, some are fake—just take it with a laugh.)

An AI-Powered Teaching Platform

My college senior project was to build a platform—an AI-powered teaching platform. That sounds too vague, so let me narrow it down: imagine Coursera plus an LLM teaching assistant, where each course gets its own fine-tuned TA LLM. But honestly, do we really need a platform? The problem we were trying to solve with this platform was the pain point of distance learning: when learning online, there’s no one to ask. That’s also the problem I ran into when I took a Coursera course, so it was really my personal pain point. I took an Objective-C app development course, but seriously, it’s 2023 (when I was a sophomore)—who is still making native iOS apps with Objective-C? Everyone uses Swift. Not only was the Xcode version in the course half of the latest Xcode version at the time (yes, that far behind), but the UI and many features were completely different.

I’ve been talking too much about my own pain. I even emailed the department chair back then and later became a Coursera TA—I’ll save that story for next time, it’s a fun experience. Back to the platform itself. The goal was to give students someone to ask when taking classes remotely, right? In 2026, LLMs are already so powerful that we might not even need a specialized LLM for each course, but I still think the idea was pretty novel at the time.

Why do I have this doubt? Because whether it’s a startup competition or a school project, as long as you’re building software, it seems impossible to escape the fate of becoming a platform. A platform feels like the destination for every idea, the last mile to scaling up or turning something into a product. If the problem I’m solving is “learning a foreign language while watching videos,” I might just want to make a YouTube Chrome extension. But if I want to make language learning big and keep everyone spending time on my server, then it seems I have to expand that extension into a platform. From a simple “enhanced YouTube subtitles,” it becomes: I can track your study hours; now that I have study hours, I should give you more resources; based on the language you’re learning and the videos you like, I should recommend content; so I need to design an algorithm; and that algorithm has to run on my server because it’s proprietary. Boom, I start spending time designing my platform, frontend, backend, database, referral links to get people to subscribe, and even partnering with not-so-famous YouTubers (because they’re the ones I can afford).

But back to my original intention: I just want to learn Korean well enough to understand what Chodan is talking about. I don’t want some platform.

Today’s Coding Agents (any LLM-based software that can call tools and write code) are so powerful that I should be able to build one myself, right? So I should skip the step of searching for existing products and just develop a Chrome extension based on my own needs. But I want to share it, so I open-source it. People start filing GitHub issues with feature suggestions, and I implement them with Codex. Users email me saying, “Can you add xxx?” and I agree, so I implement that with Codex too. The browser extension gets bloated and laggy when enabled, and more and more buttons appear on the page. Then something in my brain misfired: with so many features, I should build a full website to present them properly. So I start designing frontend, backend, database, referral links to get people to subscribe, and even partnering with even-less-famous YouTubers…

What Sindre Sorhus Inspired in Me

A legend among legends. For an introduction, check out Chaping’s video:

https://youtu.be/SGKvQHF3rOY?si=G3OfAHo2YVuFJMOc

The apps he designs are tiny, but each one solves a real problem. Even though we already have enough apps and platforms on our phones, Sindre’s apps are so small that I think they’re worth downloading—clean, elegant, and don’t take up space. Simple but not Easy.

So I started wondering: what is the finish line for these startup competitions and hackathons? Is it another app where finding the logout button is as hard as climbing to the sky, or a platform so complex I can’t be bothered to learn it? I don’t want either—more like a grave than a finish line. I don’t want to be the CEO of Google or Meta; I don’t want to host too much stuff. I just want to elegantly solve a pain point. Or is it impossible to make money without building a platform? Or am I just overthinking, and who cares whether you solve it elegantly—just make it so complex users can’t understand it, because users are idiots anyway, and once they pay, I’ll make it simple.

Damn, that’s super pathetic, okay? And in some ways, pretty unethical.

So what can I do? Nothing? No, we should make one-time paid software mainstream, let the subscription model die completely, celebrate the system where you can fully own something, and praise the craftsman spirit—starting with you and me.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 21:19:59 +0800

(Old blog post, written: 2023-11-23)

This was an assignment for a general education course. After watching this TED talk, I found the topic fascinating, so I wrote some of my personal reflections.

Source: https://youtu.be/rrkrvAUbU9Y?si=44CFkKhIQvWVAjbq, NCKU General Education Psychology Slides

The Candle Problem

Experimenters gave participants some nails, matches, and asked them to attach a candle to the wall, but the wax couldn’t drip onto the wall. Many people couldn’t see the solution at first, trying to nail the candle to the wall or stick it with wax, but the solution was to use the nail box as a platform.

The problem setup is shown below:

The nails are placed inside the box.

The fastest, most direct, but not-so-intuitive solution:

Actually, just use the nail box to complete the task.

Extrinsic Motivation

Motivation driven by the external world that makes people do certain things, such as rewards, punishments, etc. The video mentions that extrinsic rewards worked for 20th-century jobs, but in the 21st century, this mechanical, reward-and-punishment approach is not only ineffective but also harmful. Glucksberg’s experiments proved this. This worked for several years and is one of the most robust research findings. There are some exceptions, like simple problems where participants are given clear actions plus rewards, which can indeed improve performance.

Later, he conducted another experiment using a simple version of the candle problem, showing that if-then rewards are very effective for this type of work with simple rules and clear goals. Because this makes people’s thinking more direct and narrower. But most problems in life are like the original candle problem, requiring creative, conceptual work. Right-brain tasks cannot use extrinsic rewards because they don’t have clear, simple rules and solutions.

Simple version of the candle problem

💡 If-then rewards often destroy creativity; they only work in a much narrower environment than we imagine.

Intrinsic Motivation

Motivation driven by one’s own interests, passion, and ideals, completely spontaneous.

The video also mentions that new business operation models should revolve around:

Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose

Compared to extrinsic rewards, this approach can make employees perform better. The most famous example should be Google’s 20 Percent Time method, where they have 20% of their time for autonomous application, and almost half of the new products are generated during the 20% period.

Another example is Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia. They spent a large amount of money hiring professionals to complete this project, hoping to accomplish this feat within the scheduled time and budget. However, a few years later, another encyclopedia was born, created by people for interest, with no one receiving money, and that encyclopedia was called Wikipedia.

ROWE (Result Only Work Environment)

Created by two American consultants. Under this system, employees have no rigid schedule; they are only responsible for producing results. Sometimes they don’t even need to go to the office or meetings. It’s somewhat like the “responsibility system” we’re familiar with, but even more flexible. The implementation results were: almost all companies’ productivity increased, engagement increased, satisfaction increased, and turnover decreased. It enhanced autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Motivation for Choosing NCKU Computer Science

Actually, I think my initial motivation was a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. On one hand, I really hoped my future work could have flexible hours and high salary, and choosing computer science could also meet societal expectations; on the other hand, I was genuinely interested in computer-related knowledge, though I had less exposure to it in high school.

Learning Motivation Transformation

What’s worth sharing is my learning motivation. In my freshman year, because everyone was so talented, coming from top-choice high schools, and I was from a community high school with a weak high school foundation, I felt really frustrated. At the same time, cram schools kept saying: you need to be in the top few percent to get recommended to top graduate schools. This created huge pressure, and I felt disgusted when I saw books. All learning was for grades and credits. This training continued until my sophomore year with obvious results - my grades became really good. But at the same time, I saw many people sharing about work-life balance and felt I should return to who I was in high school, simply wanting to learn knowledge, learning out of curiosity about the field. We all know that satisfying curiosity is a very happy thing.

So my learning style gradually changed from grade-oriented to curiosity-driven. I used to prepare for exams just for test questions, and although I still do sometimes, I care more about whether I truly understand what I’m learning, rather than just getting good grades and walking away. I used to attend some information conferences probably because I wanted to add more color to my resume (though it wasn’t very useful, haha), but now it’s purely to satisfy curiosity and enjoy the feeling of learning new things. I also discovered that “studying” itself is a very happy thing; what I really don’t like are actually “exams” and “meeting others’ expectations.” Sometimes you just need to be your own hero, without blaming or getting angry because of others’ words or expectations. Even if you do have corresponding emotions, aren’t you the one making yourself angry?

Guitar and Music

I started playing guitar in junior high, but initially my dad thought my life was too boring and wanted me to have a hobby. It was indeed extrinsic motivation at first, but later this hobby accompanied me through many emotions. Plus, my family and I all love music, and it became my bridge to the world of music. It wasn’t until high school that I started to shine in clubs, and my motivation was mixed. On one hand, I wanted to show a good self to others, hiding my inferiority complex. Sometimes I would wonder: do I really enjoy the feeling on stage? What I play has no soul at all, just like exams, I just want to play it well but forget that imperfection is also part of perfection.

In university, because my classmates were also very talented people, plus I had to focus on coursework (so funny, others start having fun in college, I start studying in college), I put this interest/skill aside. I didn’t touch it for over a year, and my lack of confidence gradually made me forget the simplest motivation for enjoying something. But later, with the change in my mindset, I slowly found the self who dialogued with my inner world through music. I even started recording cover videos because I wanted to improve myself. None of this was for comparison, but purely wanting to do something well. I just felt I liked it, wanted to improve, and seeing myself improve felt great. None of this was required by courses, but I just felt it was meaningful and passionate - this is my intrinsic motivation.

After saying so much, I think we don’t need to reject extrinsic motivation too much. We can try to treat it as an opportunity. Maybe the time just hasn’t come yet, and intrinsic motivation might gradually emerge. Just like when I first learned guitar, the initial motivation wasn’t from intrinsic motivation either. The premise is that you must continue exploring. It’s the same in any field - the deeper and broader your understanding, the more interested you’ll become. If you feel uninterested, of course, it might be that you’re genuinely not interested, but it’s also very possible that your exploration isn’t deep enough.

This was just a general education course assignment that I accidentally wrote too much. I hope everyone can get some inspiration from it, and I welcome everyone to share their own motivations. Thank you all!

Reflection on Yenslife's Blog

Do We Really Need More Platforms?

Do We Really Need More Platforms?

An AI-Powered Teaching Platform

What Sindre Sorhus Inspired in Me

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

The Candle Problem

Extrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic Motivation

ROWE (Result Only Work Environment)

My Motivation Sharing

Motivation for Choosing NCKU Computer Science

Learning Motivation Transformation

Guitar and Music