Using a free software stack, you could be an effective developer with a relatively low budget. A cheap or used laptop and an internet subscription.

LLM coding is changing that too. You either need a very powerful and expensive machine to run a local model, or (currently more likely) an LLM subscription. We are lead to believe you have to pay a monthly fee to be an effective developer.

The prospect of your output as a developer being tied to a proprietary service seems risky at best.

@jani I really feel this. Having started out as an somewhat impoverished teenager, software engineering got me into a middle class. This profession is incredibly accessible to people that are stubborn enough.

I hate to see it being gate-kept with stupid LLM tools.