Now that text and code output is nearly free, agency has become easy to fake. It used to take real effort to produce meaningful output, so that output worked as a decent proxy for high agency. Since systems reward people who look like supercharged high-agency individuals, many now “code hack” the appearance by flooding the world with cheap output. It looks like everyone is tackling big problems, but much of it is trash. People with real drive and a genuine desire to work were already rare, and they’re now much harder to separate from those just shoving stuff out to be perceived that way. Once output becomes the measure of agency, it stops measuring it.