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My development team costs $41.73 a month

philipotoole.com

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Re: My development team costs $41.73 a month

#11

Post by patchymcnoodles »

That is a very strange calculation for me or I missed something. This is an open-source project, so all human contributors cost zero. He does not count himself as a cost, ok fine and understandable if you don't wanna earn from this project it is kind of an ok look at cost. But if I see it in this relation, because of Copilot his "team" costs now $41.73 a month more than before.

But the real cost that would be interesting is time value: Does he really spends less time for the same feature?

Re: My development team costs $41.73 a month

#12

Post by bee_rider »

otoolep wrote: post #10
otoolep wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blog post author here. From my perspective I didn't have a development team before. I have one now. I guess I am a member of that team now. But I hadn't thought of it like that -- another strange dimension to working Copilot (and its ilk).

Also, I don't value Copilot at $41.73. What actually happens is that GitHub charges me $41.73. I value it at way more. The consumer surplus here is substantial, IMHO.

I wonder what their profit margin is, on an inference. Wonder if it is positive or negative.

Re: My development team costs $41.73 a month

#13

Post by indigodaddy »

I also submitted this earlier today prior to this submission, but it was flagged, which I was confused by, so glad this one got through.

This was an interesting article and brought some good points around the fact that the AI never has a continuing backward/forward-looking context about one's project. Perhaps these ideas are being thought about to potentially add as features of LLMs somehow without making it unfeasible from token/context perspective.

Re: My development team costs $41.73 a month

#14

Post by otoolep »

bee_rider wrote: post #12
otoolep wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I don't value Copilot at $41.73. What actually happens is that GitHub charges me $41.73. I value it at way more. The consumer surplus here is substantial, IMHO.

I wonder what their profit margin is, on an inference. Wonder if it is positive or negative.

I wonder the same thing myself, wouldn't surprise me if it's heavily subsidized. So much compute being given away for free.

Re: My development team costs $41.73 a month

#15

Post by nirolo »

indigodaddy wrote: post #13

I also submitted this earlier today prior to this submission, but it was flagged, which I was confused by, so glad this one got through. This was an interesting article and brought some good points around the fact that the AI never has a continuing backward/forward-looking context about one's project. Perhaps these ideas are being thought about to potentially add as features of LLMs somehow without making it unfeasib…

This is exactly the idea behind the concept of a memory bank that I think Cline introduced first. It serves as a goto for project overview and current scope and goals the project has.

Re: My development team costs $41.73 a month

#16

Post by delfinom »

dmitrygr wrote: post #2

I think we need a mandatory disclosure on software "was >1% vibecoded" same as we have on allergens for food. This'll prevent its use in any safety-critical place.

Technically for safety critical, safe code was to be audited and certified to the standard anyway. We don't just pull random open source packages.

Granted vibe coded junk will quickly get avoided if it is poorly written to the point that it makes auditing insufferable.

Re: My development team costs $41.73 a month

#17

Post by the__alchemist »

otoolep wrote: post #9
do_not_redeem wrote: post #6

If the headline is true, this guy values the AI at $41.73, but his own time at $0/hr. If that's how we're measuring things, then my development team costs $0 a month.

Blog post author here. From my perspective I didn't have a development team before. I have one now. I guess I am a member of that team now. But I hadn't thought of it like that -- another strange dimension to working Copilot (and its ilk).

> I have [a development team now] now.

This is disconnected enough from how these words are normally used that the statement, and its downstream conclusions don't have a clear interpretation.

Re: My development team costs $41.73 a month

#18

Post by bee_rider »

dmitrygr wrote: post #2

I think we need a mandatory disclosure on software "was >1% vibecoded" same as we have on allergens for food. This'll prevent its use in any safety-critical place.

This shouldn’t really matter, software can also be written by very bad coders.

If you care about safety, you care about the whole process—coding, sure, but also: code review, testing, what the design specs were, and what the failure-path is for when a bug (inevitably) makes it through.

Big companies produce lots of safety critical code, and it is inevitable that some incompetent people will sneak into the gaps, there. So, it is necessary to design a process that accounts for commits written by incompetent people.

Re: My development team costs $41.73 a month

#19

Post by wiseowise »

dmitrygr wrote: post #2

I think we need a mandatory disclosure on software "was >1% vibecoded" same as we have on allergens for food. This'll prevent its use in any safety-critical place.

Given performance of an average SE, that would be an improvement. So I don’t know what you’re saying.
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