Comment by RDHenderson
2 days ago
The distinction between coding-by-prompting and knowing what to build is the right one, but I'd push it further.
The problem with vibe coding isn't the coding part — it's that people are trying to think through their product while they're building it. That's always been a bad idea. AI just makes the consequences arrive faster.
Good product thinking happens before you touch any tool. What problem are you actually solving? For whom? What does success look like? What are you not building? These questions don't get easier with LLMs — if anything, because you can generate plausible-looking output so quickly, it's easier than ever to convince yourself you've answered them when you haven't.
The vibe coding mess isn't an AI problem. It's a 'skipped the thinking' problem that AI has made cheap enough to do at scale.
Thinking first just isn't cost-effective anymore.
So many companies and products were built on a pivot. Why try to imagine the exact problem, user, success, etc. when you can build in seconds (or more reasonably days) and then find the right users' problems to rebuild around from actual users?
It might feel like kicking the can down the road. But it's a much more informed decision when users churn or they don't. And you can reach that decision point just about as quickly as a long thinking/planning phase.
Thinking while building is bad when paying multiple high-dollar humans for months per rebuild. It's arguably better when a full redesign costs you $10.57.