After nine years of grinding, Replit found its market. Can it keep it?

personally, the evolution of replit makes me sad. i remember writing some of my very first ever programs in python using replit in middle school, as it wasn't blocked by the school network and it was the best way of running arbitrary code online back then. i used it to execute java code for AP computer science in high school, and i improved a ton at using the terminal as well. At some point, I stopped using the replit web editor and was coding by full-screening the built-in terminal and using vim. it was a formative experience and really helped me develop as a programmer even though all i had access to was a locked-down chromebook. but now, going back to the website and seeing the first thing it shows to you is how you can "build apps using AI", not even being able to even create an environment to run some python code without talking to an LLM, and the company focusing on ARR and becoming "AI-native" and creating value and all that jazz, and it feels like the magic of learning to code for the first time has been lost. luckily, kids these days are spoiled with webassembly and can run pretty much whatever they want in the browser, so i'm sure the next generation of young programmers will be alright

You should be grateful and happy for the people that helped you in your journey, they made it! You know, apps are not AI (yet), what you used for free was built by someone that deserves the success.

But that’s true of everything we use. Someone made that fork you use. That plate. The shoes you wear. Same for an app. You don’t deserve anything. If you make something, and release it into the world, you have a responsibility. Not a reward. A reward may come. People may pay you for your services or your novelty but in no way shape or form are you deserving of it. Deserving of something is a 3rd person observation. You can not demand that you deserve anything.