For years, tutorials have been the lifeblood of the DIY tech internet.  Blog posts explaining how to install Nginx.  Forum guides on tuning MySQL.  How to create backups, how to setup a firewall, and obscure Linux quirks you might run into.  Some big providers – Linode, Digital Ocean, etc. – invested a lot in their libraries of recipes and howtos, which were clever ways to lure people into their ecosystems.

They’ve certainly been a big part of the LowEndBox experience – we’ve published over 300 tutorials!

But are they still relevant in the AI era?  With AI tools able to generate instant, customized howtos on demand, does the traditional tutorial still have a future?  Is there a point to writing a tutorial, or should people just publish prompts instead?

Let’s look at both sides.

The Case for “Yes, Tutorials Are Dead”

AI Writes Tutorials Instantly

Need a guide to install PostgreSQL on Debian 12 with systemd tweaks and a specific filesystem layout?  An AI can generate it in seconds.  No searching.  No scrolling past ads (well…).  No outdated screenshots from 2017.

Tutorials Age Poorly

Tutorials rot fast.  How to setup something on Debian 12 may not work on Debian 13.  Worse, it may work, but sub-optimally with poor performance because the old tutorial didn’t know that the way tmpfs is handled has changed or whatever.

Packages change.  Flags get deprecated.  Entire projects disappear.  These things are never a problem with AI instructions, because it adapts effortlessly to your OS version, init system, preferred tooling, and even skill level.

AI Rewrites in Seconds

“I’m deploying on Debian…er, wait, make that Alma.”  And seconds later, you have a completely rewritten howto.

I know I’ve certainly had the experience of finding the exact tutorial I want, but it’s for the wrong distro.  No such problem with AI.  You can tweak and change interactively.

SEO Killed the Signal

A lot of tutorials today exist mainly to rank in search engines.  They’re padded with filler, affiliate links, and generic explanations to please algorithms, not readers.  AI bypasses all of that.  You ask a question and you get an answer.

Fewer Reasons to Publish “Basic” Guides

Do we really need another “How to install Docker” post?  Probably not.  AI can already explain it better, faster, and without pretending it’s 2026-relevant forever.

The Case for “No, Tutorials Aren’t Dead”

But now, listen up.

There’s something different about a tutorial written by a real person who actually did the thing.  Not just “run these commands” but rather “This broke the first time. Here’s why. Here’s what I tried next.”

That lived experience matters.  Tutorials are often more about the journey together.

The best ones start with “I had this itch to scratch” and proceed to relate the author’s ideas, missteps, and final triumph.  It’s like a mini-drama of man vs. machine, where someone tries something audacious, has some setbacks, and finally comes out with a perfect solution.  I mean, it’s practically a Joseph Campbell hero’s journey.

Granted, “how to backup MySQL” is not this kind of post.  That is a commodity question that AI can answer.

But “I wanted to make a highly available WordPress setup”  tutorial where there are multiple paths, several technologies that can break, a lot of “two steps forward, one step back”  moments, some hair pulling, and finally a live demo of success…that is the kind of shared journey I’m talking about.

So while AI answers can be authoritative, they’re also anonymous.  You know that ChatGPT has never really ordered a Raspberry Pi and tried to setup a home weather monitoring station which text forecasts to the owner every evening at 7pm.  It can tell you how to do that, but there’s no story about it.

My prediction is that the future of tutorials is not big libraries with cut-and-paste directions to setup nginx+mysql on Ubuntu, but rather tutorials that read like a friend telling you a technical war story about how they slew a complex dragon.

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.