I’ve replaced outsourced web developers with AI agents. — and I haven't looked back. Not because the work became trivial, but because the ratio between time spent and value delivered shifted so dramatically that the old model stopped making sense.
The core insight: for showcase websites, HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript are not just sufficient — they're superior. No frameworks, no dependency chains, no toolchain to configure. The agent handles execution; I handle judgment, taste, and the client relationship that actually determines whether the result is good.
A certain kind of monopoly is over. Those who built careers on knowing the right frameworks have lost what, for many types of projects, was their main differentiator. What replaced it isn't just automation — it's a different philosophy about where value actually lives in the process.