The issue seems to be that LLMs already consumed large parts of the templatized code somewhere. Not directly from TW but from some other project. Codex / Claude are also exceptionally good at whipping out a UI quickly even when given flimsy requirements. Its hard running this business and competing against a several billion dollar machine. Wonder how Material UI is doing as they have a similar business model.
schlap 1/7/2026||
Tailwind UI could be the missing piece for AI generated frontend to have consistency, but it seems that shadcn took that place in the last 3-5 years.
damsta 1/7/2026||
Companies like Vercel, Lovable, and Stackblitz should pay salaries to each of these engineers. Their business succeeded only because Tailwind exists.
koakuma-chan 1/7/2026||
Companies like Vercel, Lovable, and Stackblitz should dissolve because their existence is a net negative for humanity.
Jonathanvw 1/7/2026||
Why is there existence a net negative for humanity?
koakuma-chan 1/7/2026||
Same reason as tobacco companies.
nickmonad 1/7/2026|||
I agree with the sentiment that companies should help fund open source they depend on, but I think it's a stretch to say those business succeeded "only" because of Tailwind. It's a great project, although I'm pretty sure they would have figured out a way to work with CSS without it.
suyash 1/7/2026||
Welcome to the internet, most of it is build by unknown OSS developers, how many people will you go ask these companies to pay for?
cjk 1/7/2026||
I'm a Tailwind Plus customer in spite of not being the world's biggest Tailwind fan. Even though it really grinds my gears how unreadable markup can be when littered with Tailwind classes, I appreciate the quality and variety of the templates and components available in Tailwind Plus and the constant (free!) updates. So this is a bummer to hear. Many thanks to Adam and the team.
pixelpulsate 1/10/2026||
This pretty much accurately covers what's really happening: "Tailwind CSS Lays off 75% of Engineers Due to Brutal AI - or... 3 People Fired Because CEO Sucks..."
It's time to think about seriously "Could we create a license to make AI companies pay for your content?" or "Create a technology to ban AI bots effectively",
However, the whole conversation is worth reading (but it's sort of heartbreaking).
Sounds like fairly decent folks, all around.
MangoCoffee 1/8/2026||
If your business can easily be replaced or lose revenue because of AI, it doesn't sound like a good business model to begin with
bitbasher 1/7/2026||
Ever feel like creating and nurturing an opensource project? Some of those responses make me second guess doing anything with opensource.
b34r 1/8/2026|
It's important to remember this is just the commercial arm. The OSS side has as many maintainers as Adam allows and the community is quite active with PRs and volunteer work. Tailwind the project will be ok. Someone will fork it if stales thanks to its popularity. That being said, many more companies should sponsor considering its ubiquitous adoption.