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Deep focus: Behind the booming 'handcrafted economy,' ordinary creators turn AI side projects into viable ventures_我的网站
一 | 8 月 25 日消息，传闻如今得到了证实。SpaceX 计划在其巨型下一代火箭“星舰”（Starship）开始定期执行运营任务后，逐步退役目前公司的主力火箭“猎鹰 9”（Falcon 9）。
Meet Qiguang, a 1991-born eyeglasses store owner whose AI-generated Chinese celestial realm racked up 5 million views overseas.
He is part of a rising movement in China: the "handcrafted economy," in which low-cost AI technologies and creativity are opening a new path to entrepreneurship.A white jade corridor stretches deep into a sea of clouds. The towering celestial palace rises above tiered upturned eaves, and red-crowned cranes glide between floating sanctuaries.
Shared online by viewers without subtitles or dialogue, this AI-generated short video racked up more than 5 million views across overseas social platforms in less than four days, attracting audiences worldwide.
Many overseas viewers assumed the atmospheric visual sequence came from a professional film studio or seasoned 3D animation team.
However, its creator, known online as Qiguang, leads a far more ordinary life. Born in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, in 1991, he now runs a physical optical shop. In his spare time between serving the customers, he taught himself AI image and video generation, painstakingly crafting the viral vision of a Chinese celestial realm.
Qiguang's overnight international fame is no isolated internet success story. It signals the spread of a new trend dubbed the "shoucuo" economy or handcraft economy. The term describes the process of bringing ideas to fruition by hand on a small scale with simple tools, relying mainly on individual skill or manual labor rather than dedicated industrial production lines.
On Chinese social media, the hashtag "Hand-Crafting Everything" has surpassed 100 million views. In app stores, solo developers are launching AI-powered tools that compete directly with products backed by tech giants. This movement, defined by low costs, high creative freedom and flexible, fragmented workflows, is reshaping the national imagination of entrepreneurship.
Two people, one vision of heaven
Few viewers of Qiguang's viral celestial video realized that behind its ethereal beauty stood not a studio of dozens, but just two people, and hundreds of discarded AI attempts.
Qiguang told the Global Times that he had long been fascinated by the grand, ethereal landscapes of Chinese mythology - the celestial palaces and floating realms described in ancient texts. Then he discovered the work of another creator, Xueli Xianzong (screen name), whose AI-generated visuals captured a distinct Eastern aesthetics and minimalist blank-space composition.
"I realized AI could break down the barriers for ordinary people," Qiguang said. "The images I'd held in my mind for so long could finally become visible."
Xueli Xianzong had arrived at a similar realization earlier. For years, he had wanted to visualize the celestial palaces of Chinese fantasy fiction, but traditional 3D modeling and live-action filming were prohibitively expensive for an individual. AI generation tools changed that. He began spending his free time learning text-to-image and image-to-video technologies, carving out a niche in the relatively obscure genre of Chinese fantasy visuals.
The two eventually became creative partners, though their collaboration is unusually loose.
"Mostly we create independently, then share our finished work for critique and inspiration. We absorb aesthetic ideas from each other's visuals and incorporate them into our own," Xueli Xianzong said. "This is how most creators in this space collaborate right now."
But if their creative partnership was remarkably uncomplicated, their struggle with AI itself was anything but straightforward. The process behind a video like "Chinese Heavenly Court" is far more painstaking than audiences have imagined. Qiguang broke it down: First, conceptualize the overall atmosphere and frame each shot's camera movement. Second, use an AI image generation tool to generate high-quality static images for each frame, endlessly tweaking prompts to control architectural details, color palettes, lighting and composition. Third, feed the selected images into AI video-generation models to add dynamic lens effects, like horizontal camera panning, drifting clouds, flowing sleeves. Fourth, sort through the output, discard distorted or broken footage, edit the clips together and finally choose music to match the mood.
"AI frequently produces garbled architecture, deformed figures or unnatural motion," Qiguang said. "You envision something perfect in your mind, but after dozens of generations, you still haven't transformed your vision into reality."
After two years of self-learning, Qiguang regards his biggest breakthrough as escaping generic mass-produced ancient Chinese aesthetics. To him, the handcraft economy differs fundamentally from traditional entrepreneurship at its starting point.
"You can begin with just one person and a single computer, turning ideas directly into content or products. Heavy upfront investment disappears, yet every tedious task, every round of trial and error falls solely on the creator," Qiguang said.
"The AI-assisted handcraft model removes many steep technical barriers. If you possess taste and imagination, you can experiment in your spare time," he noted with a beam of proud.
Guo Yi, a professor at the School of Journalism, Chongqing University, told the Global Times the handcraft economy can be more accurately described as "intelligent creation economy" or "geek creation economy": Human intellect directs computing power, and creativity guides automated tools. In many ways, the movement mirrors the global maker economy.
"Yet generative AI brings transformative changes beyond merely lowering entry costs for creative industries. It is restructuring cost frameworks and production relationships across creative sectors," Guo said.
A fast-growing community
Xu still vividly remembers, in January 2025, publishing a simple post on the social media platform Xiaohongshu: "I want to build an AI app that chats with elderly users and helps them compile life memoirs. Anyone want to join?"
Under conventional internet industry logic, the idea sounded unrealistic. Developing an app once required large teams and millions of capital. But AI rewrote these rules.
Xu previously worked in the energy sector with no coding background. Using domestic large language models including DeepSeek, she assembled a working product prototype block by block. Without dedicated product managers or UI designers, she single-handedly completed market research and product design.
"In the past, many good creative concepts were abandoned simply because their costs were too high. Today, AI has driven down model token costs, making experimentation accessible to ordinary people and drawing growing numbers of newcomers into this space," Xu told the Global Times.
The day after her recruitment post went live, a flood of private messages confirmed genuine market demand.
Li Ning, a professor at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management, pointed out that traditional entrepreneurship demands heavy investment in research, staffing, supply chains and market testing, discouraging many innovators.
"AI compresses these costs. Small teams working through independent handcrafted development can achieve outputs that once required hundreds of workers. This has also given more people the courage to start their own businesses." Li said.
Beyond gaps in costs, "handcrafted" teams follow different organizational and collaborative frameworks from established enterprises. Li told the Global Times that inside major companies, projects are pushed to deliver steady, foreseeable returns from conception through rollout. This type of environment creates barriers for disruptive ideas to flourish. Handcrafted teams, however, benefit from their lean size: They can shift direction quickly and iterate through constant trial and error.
"This has also given more people the courage to start their own businesses," he said.
Xueli Xianzong identified four core distinctions between the handcrafted economy and traditional entrepreneurship: low barriers to entry; creativity as the core while tools remain carriers; flexible collaboration without formal incorporation or fixed teams; and low trial-and-error costs, allowing creators to explore niche verticals without financial ruin.
According to Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of China's internet giant Alibaba, as of November 2025, nearly 23,000 AI applications have been built within the innovation zone on its ModelScope open-source platform, and roughly 95 percent of them were developed by individual creators.
Data from the "2026 China One Person Company (OPC) Industry White Paper" and sector reports show more than 16 million registered OPCs across China, as of April 2026.
Navigating headwinds for the creators
Yet if AI has flattened the technical playing field, what truly determines success? For those riding the wave of the handcrafted economy, the AI era offers a double-edged promise: unprecedented freedom to turn ideas into reality, paired with formidable obstacles that test resilience at every turn.
For Qiguang, it is the ability to perceive beauty: innate aesthetic judgment and imagination.
Xu argues that the most vital asset for new entrants is not capital, but sharp insight into unmet real-world needs. "AI excels at execution. Figuring out what to build is far harder than building it," Xu said.
The true competitive edge lies in translating technical capability into tangible user value. "Identify genuine underserved demands and turn technological capacity into value for users. Technology determines whether you can build a product. Understanding users, patience for iterative refinement and long-term trust determine how far a micro-venture can travel," she noted.
But even with the right instincts, the path from idea to market is anything but smooth. The explosive growth of handcrafted products brings steep challenges on that journey.
Xueli Xianzong noted AI enables cheap copying and imitation, while individual creators face exorbitant legal costs to defend their works. When infringement costs remain far lower than enforcement costs, creative enthusiasm inevitably fades.
Beyond intellectual property, creators must escape overreliance on fleeting online traffic. Qiguang observed platform algorithms tend to prioritize snappy, conflict-driven short content, while slow, culturally rich expression struggles to gain traction. He refuses to churn out formulaic commercial drama series chasing view counts, choosing instead to deepen grand storytelling.
"The handcrafted economy is no shortcut to quick wealth. It demands patience through periods of little reward," Qiguang said, noting that new participants need sufficient time and a willingness to endure repeated trial and error.
From an app development perspective, Xu highlighted another tension: balancing customized service and standardized workflows. If every project relies entirely on manual handcrafted labor, founders risk being trapped in high-intensity, low-profit self-employment. The sector needs mature workflows, delivery benchmarks and pricing frameworks. Tasks suitable for standardization can shift to AI, while human empathy and critical judgment stay central. Privacy and ethical safeguards also grow critical, especially for services handling personal memories and sensitive information.
Guo views inconsistent quality standards as typical growing pains, which market filtering mechanisms will gradually resolve. Delayed intellectual property frameworks and emerging governance challenges, however, require thoughtful ongoing policy attention, he said.
Authorities across China have begun rolling out supportive measures to address these obstacles. Over 20 cities have launched targeted policies for OPCs. The Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area offers streamlined business registration services for solo entrepreneurs, delivering business licenses in as little as 30 minutes. Qingdao in East China's Shandong Province rolled out a specialized platform for solo entrepreneurs, delivering end-to-end support for AI innovators from technical development to revenue generation.
At the same time, a network of OPC communities has taken shape. As of May 2026, 426 such communities operate across 28 provincial-level regions and 65 cities. These hubs provide physical workspace alongside networking events, resource matching and mentorship, connecting previously isolated solo creators into a connected ecosystem.
Huo Minhan contributed to this story
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二 | SpaceX 于 2010 年首次发射猎鹰 9，此后这款火箭很快在航天史上留下了浓墨重彩的一笔。迄今为止，猎鹰 9 已经发射近 700 次，并成为人类历史上首款能够让轨道级火箭一级助推器着陆并重复使用的火箭。
三 | 自 1957 年开始服役的俄罗斯联盟号火箭，是目前执行任务次数唯一超过猎鹰 9 的运载火箭，不过猎鹰 9 有望在明年超过它。
四 | 然而，SpaceX 创始人兼 CEO 埃隆 · 马斯克 8 月 22 日在 X 上表示，逐步结束“猎鹰”系列火箭的生产和使用是不可避免的。这不仅包括猎鹰 9，还包括采用三级助推器设计的猎鹰重型火箭，后者迄今已经执行过 12 次发射任务。
五 | 马斯克表示：“一旦星舰能够实现每周数次的稳定飞行，将 SpaceX 极为稀缺的工程和生产资源转移至星舰以将发射频率提升至每日数次便具有合理性，这意味着猎鹰系列的逐步停产。”猎鹰 9 退出商业发射市场后会产生多大影响，目前还很难判断。不过，行业报告显示，SpaceX 可能从 2028 年开始取消绝大多数猎鹰 9 发射任务，只保留少量任务。
六 | 这些任务很可能包括为 NASA 执行国际空间站（ISS）的载人和补给任务。
七 | 国际空间站预计至少运行至 2030 年，这意味着商业客户届时可能不得不开始依赖星舰将卫星送入太空。SpaceX 何时开始逐步退出猎鹰 9，将取决于星舰后续的研发进展。
八 | 与上一代火箭不同，星舰从一开始就按照完全可重复使用的目标设计，其“超级重型”（Super Heavy）助推器和“星舰”上面级都能够返回地球并回收后再次执行飞行任务。
九 | 而猎鹰 9 和猎鹰重型的上面级则属于一次性使用部件。星舰的体型也远大于猎鹰 9。目前的第三代（V3）星舰高达 408 英尺，也就是 124.4 米，而猎鹰 9 的高度为 230 英尺，即 70 米。星舰能够将重量大得多的有效载荷送入太空，预计可以向近地轨道（LEO）运送超过 100 吨载荷。相比之下，猎鹰 9 和猎鹰重型向近地轨道运送的载荷能力分别约为 25 吨和 63 吨。过去几年，猎鹰 9 的绝大多数发射任务都用于部署 SpaceX 的 Starlink 卫星互联网系统。自 2023 年以来，猎鹰 9 已执行超过 300 次 Starlink 发射任务，帮助不断扩大的星座规模达到 1.1 万多颗卫星。不过，新一代 Starlink 卫星的体积更大，设计目标是装入星舰的有效载荷舱，而不是安装在猎鹰 9 顶部。一旦星舰能够稳定执行发射任务，甚至在此之前，SpaceX 就计划开始利用新版本卫星升级 Starlink 网络。
十 | 这很可能会推动星舰发射次数呈指数级增长。猎鹰 9 当年就经历过类似的发展过程。2019 年，也就是 SpaceX 开始组建 Starlink 星座的那一年，猎鹰 9 仅发射了 11 次。到了 2025 年，猎鹰 9 的发射次数已经达到惊人的 165 次，其中 122 次用于部署 Starlink 卫星。
十一 | 注意到，NASA 也已经与 SpaceX 签订合同，让后者为 Artemis 计划研发用于登月的星舰版本。
十二 | 第三代星舰计划在明年执行 Artemis III 任务，并与 NASA 的“猎户座”飞船在近地轨道进行对接操作演练。按照计划，星舰还将在 2028 年执行 Artemis IV 任务，将宇航员送上月球表面。据 Ars Technica 报道，SpaceX 已经告知 NASA，计划在同一年结束商业猎鹰 9 发射任务。不过，目前星舰还没有获得用于与国际空间站对接的合同，也没有针对这一用途进行专门设计。
十三 | NASA 目前计划继续采购 SpaceX 的货运飞船和载人龙飞船任务，至少到 2030 年前持续向国际空间站运送宇航员和物资，因此很难在短期内将这些任务全部转交给星舰。除了成本和合同方面的因素之外，星舰本身巨大的体型也会带来相当大的工程风险，可能超出国际空间站现有的安全设计范围。无论国际空间站最终运行到什么时候，SpaceX 能否按计划让猎鹰 9 逐步退出舞台，最终还是取决于星舰能否取得成功。截至目前，星舰已经完成 13 次亚轨道测试飞行。下一次飞行预计将在未来一个月内进行，并有可能首次尝试完整进入轨道。但这只是星舰在真正实现马斯克所说的“每周可靠地飞行数次”之前必须完成的众多里程碑之一。
十四 | 猎鹰 9 已经实现了这样的高频发射能力，但星舰基础设施的建设规模要远远超过目前这十几次成功试飞本身。最终，SpaceX 能多快让星舰达到猎鹰 9 的可靠性和发射频率，将决定这款服役多年的老牌火箭何时能够大规模退出历史舞台。
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