What is going on right now?

> Here’s the thing - we want to help. We want to build good things. Things that work well, that make people’s lives easier. We want to teach people how to do software engineering!

This is not what companies want. Companies want "value" that customers will pay for as quickly and cheaply as possible. As entities they don't care about craftsmanship or anything like that. Just deliver the value quickly and cheaply. Its this fundamental mismatch between what engineers want to do (build elegant, well functioning tools) and what businesses want to do (the bare minimum to get someone to give them as much money as possible) that is driving this sort of pulling-our-hair-out sentiment on the engineering side.

“The only way to go fast, is to go well.” Robert C. Martin

Maybe spaghetti code delivers value as quickly as possible in the short term, but there is a risk that it will catch up in the long term - hard to add features, slow iterations - ultimately losing customers, revenue and growth.

Anecdotally I'm already seeing this on a small scale. People who vibe coded a prototype to 1 mil ARR are realizing that the velocity came at the cost of immense technical debt. The code has reached a point where it is essentially unmaintainable and the interest payments on that technical debt are too expensive. I think there's going to be a lot of money to be made over the next few years un-fucking these sort of things so these new companies can continue to scale.

if i have 1mil ARR, i can hire some devs to remake my product from scratch. and use the Vibecoded Example as a design mockup.

If i manage to vibecode something alone that takes off, even without technical expertise, then you validated the AI usecase...

Before Claude i had to make a paper prototype or a figma, now i can make Slop that looks and somehow functions the way i want. i can make preliminary tests, and even get to some proof of concept. in some cases even 1million $ annual revenue...

Yes, this is exactly where AI shines: PoCs and validating ideas. The problems come when you're ready to scale. And the "I can hire some devs to remake my product from scratch" part is the exact money making scenario some of my consulting friends are starting to see take shape in the market.

This is where the missmatch is, the future is not in scaled apps, the future is in everyone being able to make their own app.

You don't have to feature pack if you are making a custom app for your custom use case, and LLMs are great with slim narrow purpose apps.

I don't think LLMs will replace developers, but I am almost certain they will radically change how end users use computers, even if the tech plateaus right now.

> the future is in everyone being able to make their own app.

Everyone can do their own plumbing and electrical work in their homes too. For some people it works out, for others it's still better to pay someone else to do it for them.

I don't think basic software apps have anywhere near the risk profile of electrical or plumbing work.

I'm pretty comfortable letting my mom vibecode a plant watering tracker. Not so much wiring up a distribution box.