There's a fascinating debate happening right now on Hacker News: "If AI writes your code, why use Python?" It's sitting at 400+ points and hundreds of comments.

The argument is basically: if AI generates your code anyway, language choice matters less. The runtime matters. The ecosystem matters. But the syntax you type? Less so.

But here's the question nobody's asking in that thread:

If AI writes your code, why are you paying $20/month for the privilege?

The hidden cost of AI-assisted development

Most developers using AI coding tools are on one of:

ChatGPT Plus: $20/month

GitHub Copilot: $10/month

Claude Pro: $20/month

Cursor Pro: $20/month

If you're using two of these (common), that's $30-40/month just to write code faster.

For a developer in San Francisco earning $200k/year, that's noise.

For a developer in Lagos, Nairobi, or Manila earning the local equivalent of $15-30k/year? That's 1-3 days of salary.…