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 apparently you need to use the latest model. But if the latest model 6 months ago was good enough to create software 6 months ago, then it must still be good enough to create software this month. And if today's model can't be used in 6 months (because there is a newer one) then it can't be used today either.

Having to pay for the latest model is only true if you are in a competition, not of you want to create something useful.