What the article doesn't touch on is the vendor lock-in that is currently underway. Many corps are now moving to an AI-based development process that is reliant on the big AI providers.

Once the codebase has become fully agentic, i.e., only agents fundamentally understand it and can modify it, the prices will start rising. After all, these loss making AI companies will eventually need to recoup on their investments.

Sure it will be - perhaps - possible to interchange the underlying AI for the development of the codebase but will they be significantly cheaper? Of course, the invisible hand of the market will solve that problem. Something that OPEC has successfully done for the oil market.

Another issue here is once the codebase is agentic and the price for developers falls sufficiently that it will significant cheaper to hire humans again, will these be able to understand the agentic codebase? Is this a one-way transition?

I'm sure the pro-AIs will explain that technology will only get cheaper and better and that fundamentally it ain't an issue. Just like oil prices and the global economy, fundamentally everything is getting better.