"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results."
Someone put that in a for-loop and is selling it to you on YouTube right now.
About this article
I wrote this. The ideas are mine; the execution is collaborative.
I'm tired. And I'm pissed off.
(Fair warning: this is my first article and it doesn't come with nice sections and headers. Apologies. A rant doesn't come with a table of contents.)
I'm tired of watching influencers (people who've never shipped anything that mattered) torch this industry for clicks. I'm tired of the rocket emojis and the "🔥 SHIPPED IN 2 HOURS 🔥" threads that conveniently skip the part where the code is unmaintainable garbage. I'm tired of sponsored content dressed up as revelation.
And I'm especially tired of watching developers (good developers, junior developers, developers who deserve better) drink this poison because some YouTuber with a shocked face thumbnail told them this is how real engineers work now.
It's not. It's a grift. And it's happening so fast we might not have an industry left by the time people figure it out.
If you've been watching this unfold and feeling like you're taking crazy pills—you're not crazy. You're just paying attention.
Here's how it works. Pay attention, there might be a quiz later. (Just kidding. There are no quizzes in vibe coding. There's no accountability at all. That's the whole point.)
Someone builds a wrapper around Claude that keeps generating code until... actually, until what? Until it compiles? Until it looks right? Until the demo video has enough green text scrolling by to seem impressive?
Nobody knows. Nobody cares. That's not the point.
The point is the content. The thread. The video. The "Claude built me a full ERP system while I slept and it's INCREDIBLE 🚀" flex. They don't show you the code—obviously. They don't show you it working a week later—because it isn't. They definitely don't show you tests—because lol, tests. There's just vibes. Ship it, record it, post it, collect the check, move on.
The sponsors line up. The algorithm rewards engagement. More developers watch. More developers try it. More developers produce code that might do something (they're not entirely sure what, but it's deployed, baby!)
And the influencer? Already onto the next grift. They don't maintain what they shipped. They don't deal with the consequences. They never intended to.
You're left holding the bag. But hey, at least you got a like.
Let's be really clear about what a "vibe factory" actually is.
It's automated insanity.
The famous definition: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. That's literally the algorithm. Generate code. Doesn't look right. Generate again. Still wrong. Generate again. Keep going until... something happens. Something that looks good enough for a screenshot.
They put the insanity in a bash script and called it innovation. Genius, really. Why experience personal growth when you can just while true your way to success?
"But it works!"
Does it? How would you know? Did you test it? Did you read it? Or did you just see it run once without an error message and decide that was good enough?
You're not engineering. You're not even debugging. You're pulling a slot machine lever and calling whatever comes out "shipped."
Vegas thanks you for your service.
Here's what keeps me up at night. Besides the coffee. And the existential dread. But mostly this:
There's a generation of developers coming up right now who think this is normal. Who think software engineering means writing prompts and waiting. Who've never debugged something they didn't understand—because they've never understood anything they've shipped.
But that's not even the worst part.
The worst part is the experienced developers. The ones with fifteen years of hard-won intuition. The ones who actually know how to architect systems, debug production issues, make real technical decisions. The ones who could benefit massively from AI assistance—because when you multiply experience by AI capability, you get something genuinely powerful.
They're watching these vibe factory demos and thinking: "So this is what AI coding is? This reckless, unthinking, ship-and-pray nonsense? Fuck that."
And they walk away.
Can you blame them? I can't. If this circus was my first introduction to AI-assisted development, I'd run too.
The influencers aren't just misleading juniors. They're poisoning the well for everyone. They're making "AI-assisted development" synonymous with "irresponsible hacking" in the minds of exactly the people who would use it best.
We're not just creating a generation of developers who can't develop. We're alienating a generation of developers who can, turning them away from tools that would make them even better, because the loudest voices have convinced them those tools are for fools.
That's the real destruction. The juniors will eventually learn (the hard way, probably at 3 AM, definitely in production). But the seniors who never engage? That expertise, multiplied by AI, creating genuinely excellent software? We lose that forever.
The influencers get paid either way. Funny how that works.
Follow the money. Always follow the money. (My therapist says I have trust issues. I call it pattern recognition.)
Who benefits from convincing you that thinking is optional? That understanding is a bottleneck? That the fastest path is to let the machine handle it while you move on to the next prompt?
Tool vendors benefit. More API calls. More subscription revenue. More "enterprise" deals with companies who've decided that AI means they can hire fewer seniors and more juniors who'll push the "accept all" button. What could go wrong? (Everything. Everything could go wrong.)
Influencers benefit. Sensational content performs. "I think carefully about code" doesn't get clicks. "I SHIPPED 47 APPS THIS WEEK WITH THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK" does. The trick is not caring about quality. Saves tons of time.
The actual craft of software engineering? That's the cost center. That's what's getting optimized away. Not because it's inefficient—because it's inconvenient for the business model.
If you've ever wondered why the loudest voices are saying the dumbest things, there's your answer. The dumb things pay better.
The biggest lie is that this is inevitable. That this is what AI-assisted development is. That your only choices are "vibe code" or "get left behind."
Bullshit.
I work with AI every single day. I code through conversation. I stay in flow for hours, building things, shipping things, understanding things. The AI handles execution while I handle judgment. It's faster than the old way. It's better than the old way.
And it looks nothing like what these influencers are selling.
The difference? I never stop thinking. I review what the AI produces. I push back when it's wrong (often). I make sure I can explain every line before it goes in. I own the code—not because I typed it, but because I understand it and can defend it.
That's not slower. That's not "fighting the future." That's just being a professional. Remember professionals? We used to have those.
Here's the thing that nobody wants to say out loud:
If you weren't there (if you didn't engage, didn't think, didn't make decisions), then the session didn't happen. Not for you. The AI had a session. You just watched. Or worse, you didn't even watch. You set it running and checked Twitter. Planning your next thread. Drafting the clickbait title. Feeding the impression machine while the code writes itself.
That's not development. That's not even learning. It's like getting a diploma without attending class. The certificate is worthless because you are unchanged. You didn't gain anything. You can't do anything you couldn't do before. You just have some code now that you don't understand.
Congratulations. You own nothing. But your GitHub has lots of green squares, so that's nice.
Here's the ownership test. It's simple.
Look at the code you just "shipped." Ask yourself:
- Can I explain what it does?
- Can I defend why it's built this way?
- Can I fix it when it breaks?
If yes, it's yours. You built it. Welcome to the club. We have mass anxiety about production and strong opinions about tabs vs. spaces.
If no, you own nothing. You're holding someone else's work and pretending it's yours. The AI's work, technically. But you can't even ask the AI to explain it, because you weren't paying attention when it made the decisions.
That's the test. That's the line.
I'm not asking you to reject AI. I use it constantly. It's genuinely transformative when used well.
I'm asking you to reject the grift.
Reject the influencers who've never maintained production code telling you how to write it. Reject the sponsored content pretending to be engineering advice. Reject the idea that understanding is optional, that thinking is a bottleneck, that the goal is to produce code as fast as possible regardless of whether anyone can maintain it.
The vibe factory isn't the future of development. It's the absence of development. It's what happens when we let the incentive structure of social media dictate how we practice our craft.
Insanity doesn't scale. It just fails faster.
And if you're one of the good ones—if you're reading this and nodding along, relieved that someone finally said it—know that you're not alone. There are more of us than the algorithm would have you believe.
We're just quieter. Because we're busy actually building things.
But I'm done being quiet.
I'll be writing more. About the principles that actually matter. The ones that let you use AI without losing your mind or your craft. Someone has to.
If this hit a nerve, good. That was the point.
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