So we've reached the point where AI has become the moral compass of software development. ChatGPT and friends have these safety guardrails that'll refuse to generate code for anything remotely sketchy, but guess what? You're a developer. You know how to write a for loop. You've been doing this since before AI could autocomplete your sentences. The irony is beautiful: AI companies spent billions training models on GitHub repos that probably contain every questionable implementation imaginable, but now they draw the line at your project. Meanwhile, you're sitting there with your IDE open, ready to build whatever cursed thing you had in mind anyway. The AI says no, your fingers say yes. Remember kids: AI is a tool, not a gatekeeper. Your actual coding skills are still your superpower—and apparently, your moral responsibility too.

Spotted in the wild: a developer coding without AI assistance like some kind of prehistoric craftsman. No Copilot autocomplete, no ChatGPT to rubber duck with, just pure unfiltered human error flowing directly from brain to keyboard. It's like watching someone churn butter when there's a perfectly good grocery store down the street. The "artisanal hand crafted bugs" title really captures it perfectly. Every syntax error, every off-by-one mistake, every forgotten semicolon—100% organic, locally sourced, gluten-free bugs. No AI shortcuts here, just a developer and their IDE, making mistakes the old-fashioned way. Respect the hustle, honestly. That's commitment to the craft right there.

Before AI: A handful of indie devs grinding away at their laptops, while a modest group of paying users actually valued the niche problems being solved. There was balance in the force. After AI: The market got absolutely flooded with indie developers armed with ChatGPT and Cursor, all churning out "micro SaaS" products faster than you can say "npm install." Meanwhile, the paying users? They've been diluted into oblivion, scattered across thousands of half-baked AI-generated tools that solve problems nobody actually has. The AI gold rush turned every developer with a weekend free into a SaaS entrepreneur. Now we've got 10,000 "AI-powered productivity tools" competing for the same 50 people who are still willing to pay for software. The barrier to entry dropped so low it's basically underground. Good luck finding product-market fit when everyone and their bootcamp buddy is shipping the same vibe-coded MVP that "uses AI to revolutionize [insert mundane task]."