Comment by edanm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by edanm | Hacker News Reader

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> The excuse "but you earn six figures, what' $200/month to you?" doesn't really capture the issue here.

Why?

If I want to pick up many hobbies, not to mention lines of professional work, I have to pay for tools. Why is programming any different? Why should it be?

Complaining that tools that improve your life cost money is... weird, IMO. What's the alternative? A world in which people gift you life-and-work-improving tools for free? For no reason? That doesn't exist.

> Programming used to be (and still is, to a large extent) an activity that can be done with open and free tools.

Btw, I think this was actually less true in the past. Compilers used to cost money in the 70s/80s. I think it's actually cyclical - most likely tools will cost money today, but then down the line, things will start getting cheaper again until they're free.

> Btw, I think this was actually less true in the past. Compilers used to cost money in the 70s/80s. I think it's actually cyclical - most likely tools will cost money today, but then down the line, things will start getting cheaper again until they're free.

I don't see it as an inevitable cycle. Free tools (gcc, emacs) and OS (Linux) came about as idealistic efforts driven by hobbyists, with no profit goal/expectation, then improved as large companies moved to support them out self-interest. Companies like RedHat have then managed to make a business model out of selling support for free software.

Free LLMs or other AI-based tools are only going to happen where there are similar altruistic and/or commercial interests at play, and of course the dynamics are very different given the massive development costs of LLMs. It's not a given that SOTA free tools will emerge unless it is the interest of some deep-pocketed entity to make that happen. Perhaps Meta will develop and release SOTA models, but then someone would have to host them which is also expensive. What would the incentive be for someone to host them for free or at-cost?

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