This is a great way to frame it. I'm so tired of the "make $5/hour filling out surveys" type of advice.
This reminds me a lot of what's happening at my own company. We have people on the marketing and design teams who are becoming indispensable, not because they learned to code, but because they spent 20-30 hours getting really good at using tools like Midjourney or specific AI writing assistants. They've become the translators between a business need and the tool's output. Honestly, it's a valuable skill.
But I think the "low barrier to entry" for AI services can be a bit of a trap. Getting started is easy, sure, but being good enough for someone to pay a premium is much harder. I later realized the real value isn't just knowing how to write a prompt; it's the taste, the iteration, and the deep understanding of the client's goal that makes it a high-value service.
At the end of the day, I suspect the most successful ventures will combine your two points: offering a specialized service to a hyper-niche audience. Not just "AI content editing," but something like "AI-assisted content repurposing for financial advisor podcasts." The more specific the problem you solve, the less replaceable you are.
