u/GullibleSky5437

I've been in this community since 1998. We were a Midwest design mecca—Resource, Fitch, Fahlgren, SBC cranking out national and global award-winning advertising and creative executions. Universities feeding the pipeline. Young designers, writers, developers learning from failure, from seasoned mentors, building something real.

Now? Companies are internalizing creative work. AI is being positioned as a replacement for writers, designers, and developers. And talented firms are folding because clients think "why pay for strategy and creative execution when ChatGPT is $20/month?"

Here's what nobody's saying. In response to companies shifting to this, a whole generation of creative/tech people cant find work. There are no entry-level creative/dev jobs. The only people with work are senior folks who can curate experiences and direct AI. Young talent has nowhere to develop the skills that matter—judgment, failure, experience.

Lower-level tasks like production design and editing have already been replaced by AI. But those are exactly the skills young people need to master to understand the medium. You can't become a strategic advisor without understanding execution. You can't direct AI effectively without having done that work yourself.

Show me one Columbus design firm that's produced better work with AI as a shortcut. Or maybe a brand that has had incredible success cutting out the creative firms, and using an in-house swiss army knife and a Claude subscription.

Everyone's selling "AI makes us better." I'm asking: better than what? Better than the thinking that built this city's creative reputation?

I'm not anti-innovation. I'm pro-ecosystem. And ours is collapsing in real time.

I spent 5 days in Rome from June 25-June 30, and that was 5 days too much. The stress of simply trying to get a taxi was super frustrating, given it was so hot and i had my family of 4.

1. FreeNow Taxis in Rome - They tell you to use FreeNow app, which i did. from the moment i arrived, 75% of my taxi requests were not picked up. It was so busy, and almost imposible to get from the train station to my apartment. It worked best early in the mornings, but in the middle of the day, forget it.
2. Regular Taxis in Rome - Trying to navigation the heat was aweful, so I chose to spend some money and call out taxis. Most of them say $30 if you pay cash, $40 if you pay card. And the FreeNow app says its a $15 ride, but nobody picks up. So you have to either decide to get ripped off, or keep walking until you find an honest cab driver who will just use the meter. That was the minority.
3. Train in Rome to Frascati - I wanted to get away from the city, and the train to leave was so far away, that we had to run to catch it, even though we were 20 min early without us. The train ended up leaving 5-10 min early, as we arrived at the spot with 3 min to spare. The train was nowhere in sight. The security doesn't want you on the terminal too early to keep down traffic, but then there's no penalty for the train leaving earlier than it's departure time.
4. Taxis if Frascati - These guys don't give a shit. Once we got there, there wasn't one taxi on either FreeNow or Frascati that would take us to the Winery (Old Frascati) which was our whole reason for going there. They all said no. Unbelievable. it was 98 degrees out, and we weren't going to walk it. We just had to stay in town. Nice little town, but it was a monday, and everythig was closed.
5. Fans - I think that if you are going to own a restaurant and only have outdoor seating, you should have fans. This was not the case. It felt like 100 degrees. It was aweful.
6. Tours to popular Ruins, historical places - Sucked. All of them. It was a rinse and repeat way to get cash and go on to the next. Didn't enjoy it. I actually upgraded my colosseum tour, and it was pretty bad. Couldn't understand the guide.
7. People - I know i'm gonna get shit for this. But people in rome were extremely rude. The amount of people trying to sell shit, the sharp responses for asking for directions, the asshole who checked us into our apartment. It was not a good experience for us at all.

Food in a few places were great. I tried to book reservations, but couldn't get a taxi to get to the location at all. so we ended up in some of the less authentic spots.

In general, its overcrowded, and the infrastructure isn't there to support all the people who are there to visit. Many are rude, and for the amount of $$ it takes to get there and book an apartment for a week, it is SOOO much more worth it to spend your money elsewhere.