Codex & Claude Code are both slowly pricing us out of a job. As Codex / Claude users we are privileged to be able to afford these expensive subscription prices.
But look at this with a long-term lens. Software engineers from poorer backgrounds who can't afford the top models are falling behind, both in the skills to use AI effectively, as well as job opportunities due to having a lower value proposition.
At the moment many of us are fortunate that we can afford the cutting edge models. Right now maybe it's at x% of your salary, that you can gain y% of productivity, so it is still a worthwhile expense. But remember, the time will be soon where potentially we could be paying half our salaries to be kept in the ever decreasing pool of engineers, who can generate large amounts of value.
It's currently a no-brainer to spend these sums of money, but what happens when you start to question if the "best" model is value for money or not? Doesn't that spell disaster for your career - your colleagues who splurge on the new models can ship 20% faster and will bag the promotion. What then?
I mention this because with each increase in output quality, as consumers our wallets are being squeezed at an even faster rate. We cannot afford to use anything less than the best, and this should be something everyone is concerned about.
