Christine Lemmer-Webber6d ago
Submitted without commentary: "AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web" by Mike Masnick https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/25/ai-might-be-our-best-shot-at-taking-back-the-open-web/
AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

I remember, pretty clearly, my excitement over the early World Wide Web. I had been on the internet for a year or two at that point, mostly using IRC, Usenet, and Gopher (along with email, naturall…

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Show threaddushinto6d ago

@cwebber I really had my eyes opened while on PTO for the holidays, when I used Cursor to configure my Home Assistant platform.

Up until then I was struggling to understand the vast amount of yaml configuration needed.

I have lights, temp sensors, and appliances all hooked in, but the automations sucked. A few days of working through the auto option in Cursor, and I had everything set up the way I wanted and no cloud based megacorp can take that away from me.

Show threadMark6d ago
@rickpelletier I’m unfamiliar with how Cursor works. Do they provide their own LLM or do you have to provide e.g. a Claude API key or something? Or is it using a local model?
Show threaddushinto6d ago
@basetwojesus the point about using auto mode was that my whole project cost me less than $20, and only a couple of lazy days fiddling with it to get what I wanted.
Show threadRichard Hendricks6d ago

@rickpelletier @basetwojesus Seems apropos...

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1jfjkae/exposed_cursors_claude_37_max_is_charging_premium/

They recently moved a bunch of models to MAX mode, causing heavy users at our company to gobble all their tokens in days.

Guess the low cost days are over, and AI vendors are going to start squeezing the addicts to pay for their addictions.

Show threaddushinto6d ago

@hendric @basetwojesus I think the point Masnick is trying to make is that using these tools for personal projects is a way to free ourselves from Big Tech - whether you do it today with a double-cost but super easy tool like Cursor or with a home built custom thing.

Either way, we're heading back into a world where people can just build the software they want

Show threadMark
@rickpelletier I hope that's what happens. But I worry that "AI" is just helping us to build systems that only it can help maintain since it allows people to build things they don't understand, and maybe even encourages it
Mar 26 at 3:36pmWeb
Show threaddushinto6d ago

@basetwojesus Yeah, maybe, but is it better to only have systems that we understand?

I'd rather have stuff that does what I want, even if I don't understand everything about how it works, than have nothing

Show threadMark5d ago
@rickpelletier Yeah that’s a fair question and I think an emerging split in how folks think about this technology. Personally I think it’s important that _someone_ understands the systems we’re building. I just think since it’s being used in the OP’s case to compensate for the complexity of web development, web development via LLM is only accomplishing half of what web dev used to for many of us. Sure, it lets you build something but not actually learn much about web development.
Show threaddushinto5d ago

@basetwojesus fair point. I think Masnick and I are both in the position of already knowing enough about the tech to describe what we want competently without worrying that the implementation will be magic spaghetti.

Right now, though, I think the vast majority of 'normal' people think they can't do anything because the barrier to entry is high.

With a 20 bucks sub to Cursor and some kind of computer to run it on, anyone can build themselves a task management app in a couple of days

Show threadJake5d ago
@rickpelletier @basetwojesus why is a task manager always the go to application? this is like the third time in two days somebody says something about the benefit of LLMs is being able to create your own task manager.
Show threadMark5d ago
@Affekt most of the value in writing throwaway programs like these is in learning. Can’t imagine they have much utility beyond that but to each their own
Show threadJake5d ago
@basetwojesus well yeah, it makes sense as an intro to making apps kind of thing. it has basic UI elements, storage, interactions, etc. But if someone isn't going to learn anything from it then it seems kinda pointless, considering how many variations of TODO there are.
Show threaddushinto5d ago

@basetwojesus my very first real piece of software was built for the IT department at the University of Miami. It was a web page where we had hard coded the area restaurants we liked and categorized by type. Then, it had a little database.

The purpose was to randomly select the lunch choice for the department, with logic to prevent choosing the same type two days in a row, and weights for preferring some more generally popular types.

Show threaddushinto5d ago

@basetwojesus it took me like two weeks because I was learning early early .net at the time.

Today, that app can be built by literally anyone in 15 minutes, and nobody has to use some Premium Yelp random picker thing filled with ads