An Open Letter to the New Hobbyists
My 2026 take on Bill Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists. Hint: You are not a true hobbyist in the age of AI if you are only promoting.
Fifty years ago, Bill Gates wrote An Open Letter to Hobbyists of 1976, declaring that personal computing had arrived and that midnight software deserved respect.
Ten years ago, a new wave of makers brought 3D printers into their garages, proving that physical creation no longer required a factory.
Today, a new generation of hobbyists has arrived.
You do not build with soldering irons or C code alone. You build with AI models, game engines, audio prompts, interactive maps, independent lore, and personal software. You are dungeon masters, 3D artists, indie game creators, OC writers, toolsmiths, and visual directors.
Yet, a quiet tragedy is taking place:
"A generation is being turned into passive prompt consumers. But a person who only consumes leaves no trace. An AI output that rots in a private folder is not a world."
Legacy software was built for enterprise workflows. AI platforms were built to sell compute and token subscriptions. Nobody built a true home for your imagination (a space for people creating simply because they could not stop thinking about their worlds).
We refuse to build another prompt box for disposable content. We believe in something much older.
The world in your head deserves to be seen.
Whether you craft a fictional universe, an interactive tool, a visual landscape, or a game, this is what we stand for:
1. A world becomes real when someone else steps in
Generation is just processing. A world is born not when the AI outputs pixels, but the moment another human being opens your link, makes a choice inside it, and finds you there.
2. Models climb the technical ladder. You climb the creative ladder.
Models get cheaper and faster every six months, flattening every prompt trick. We build for the ladder AI cannot touch: your taste, your world's internal logic, your curated assets, and your authority as an author.
3. GitHub for the trace. Disneyland for the encounter.
Coders have GitHub so their work stays and gets forked. Theme parks exist so worlds can be inhabited. We combine both: an engine where your world stays persistent and alive, married to a studio where it manifests as playable adventures, chats, and visual maps.
4. A home for the unfinished universe
A subscription is silent; it expires without a sound. A real studio is a physical anchor (like a 3D printer on your desk, reminding you of what still needs to be built). Neta Studio is that anchor: a living, saved place waiting for your return.
We are offering you a world workshop for the ideas you have been carrying alone.