Eight years of wanting, three months of building with AI

Re:Eight years of wanting, three months of building with AI by lowsong on Monday April 06, 2026 @06:53AM (#47659248)

The median per capita income in the United States is $37,683/year.[0] Depending on your state, after taxes, that's something like ~$2,600/month. You're asking almost 10% of their post-tax income to this just for the opportunity to create software. With rent, food, and other living expenses many households at that income level simply cannot afford this.

This is the median income. If it's a struggle for someone on this income then it's worse for half of all Americans, and American incomes are higher than most of the rest of the world.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_capita_personal_income_in_...

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Re:Eight years of wanting, three months of building with AI by tatrions on Monday April 06, 2026 @07:49AM (#47659688)

this is real but api access changes the math a lot. per-token pricing means someone building a side project on weekends might spend $5-10 total, not $200/month. the subscription model is really for people using it all day. the problem is most people don't know api access exists or how to set it up, so they either pay $200 or assume it's out of reach entirely.

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Re:Eight years of wanting, three months of building with AI by duggan on Monday April 06, 2026 @10:11AM (#47661173)

The bar for "create software" up to this last year or so was "learn software development" or "pay someone else".

Personally, I think millions more people having the ability to create some subset of software is an incredible shift.

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