hi, i'm mert erbil.
Weekday product person and consultant, weekend startup advisor, and every now and then a speaker and mentor.
I make merbil.fm, a YouTube channel of monologues (in Turkish) about tech, modern life and adulthood, and this is where the written versions live.
more about me →latest posts
- 2026-10-27why big companies get hacked so easilytechHacked Danfoss fridges, empty Albert Heijn shelves, an AI-found PHP flaw and PS5 piracy, and why Gabe Newell's line on piracy explains all of it.
- 2026-10-051000 days on duolingo, and why greater than zero is enoughtechA 1,000-day Duolingo streak in Dutch, and why it feels like fatigue: habits work, gamification is a tax, and the owl treats adults like kids.
- 2026-09-30what gta 6 will and won't begamesGTA 6's $1–2B budget, the Netflix trailer bet, what it means for AAA studios, and why I expect an old formula done really well, not a tech leap.
- 2026-08-23why we should talk about music moremusicMusic used to build friendships. Spotify turned it into furniture and a 30-second economy, but young rock fans are still out there. Why I'll talk albums.
- 2026-08-15made by google '26, and why i can't leave appletechMade by Google '26, the Pixel Watch's predicted blood pressure and insulin resistance trends, and why leaving Apple for a Pixel feels like a migration.
talks, projects & startups
- 2026-11perchweekend projectA free, open-source Spotify player for the Mac menu bar. It stays on top of your windows, sticks to the edges of your screen and picks its look from where you drop it.
- 2026-11skimweekend projectAn iPhone app that turns unread Gmail into a stack of cards. Swipe right to mark read, left to keep, up to star, and skim the pile.
- 2026-10merterbil.comweekend projectThe site you're reading. A static Astro site built with Claude Code, written for search engines and AI models as much as for people. Live since October 2026.
- 2026-10tv prompterweekend projectA free, open-source teleprompter for Android TV. The TV shows a little address, you paste your notes there from your phone or laptop, and it scrolls them very slowly.