The End of Rationing

Before AI coding tools, software development was constrained by expensive engineering talent, leading to rationing doctrines like MVP and "do one thing" that shaped industry standards. Now that AI has made building software cheap and fast, the economics have inverted—development costs have plummeted while running costs have risen—yet most software still reflects outdated designs from the pre-AI era rather than taking advantage of these new possibilities. The article argues that as developers adapt to this shift, we should expect radically better and more ambitious software that breaks free from yesterday's constraints.