[deergomoo]

On what planet is concentrating an increasingly high amount of the output of this whole industry on a small handful of megacorps “democratising” anything?

Software development was already one of the most democratised professions on earth. With any old dirt cheap used computer, an internet connection, and enough drive and curiosity you could self-train yourself into a role that could quickly become a high paying job. While they certainly helped, you never needed any formal education or expensive qualifications to excel in this field. How is this better?

[Workaccount2]

Open/local models are available.

Maybe not as good, but they can certainly do far far more than what was available a few years ago.

[bsder]

The open models don't have access to all the proprietary code that the closed ones have trained on.

That's primarily why I finally had to suck it up and sign up for Claude. Claude clearly can cough up proprietary codebase examples that I otherwise have no access to.

[simonw]

It's better because now you can automate something tedious in your life with a computer without having to first climb a six month learning curve.

[biammer]

> deergomoo: On what planet is concentrating an increasingly high amount of the output of this whole industry on a small handful of megacorps “democratising” anything?

> simonw: It's better because now you can automate something tedious in your life with a computer without having to first climb a six month learning curve.

Completely ignores, or enthusiastically accepts and endorses, the consolidation of production, power, and wealth into a stark few (friends), and claims superiority and increased productivity without evidence?

This may be the most simonw comment I have ever seen.