Code is cheap, show me the numbers
Application-layer coding costs ~0. Everyone has the same models. Impact must be measurable—code is not the benchmark.
The cost of coding—most things in the application layer—is approaching zero. Everyone has access to the same frontier models. Everyone is token-maxxing. Generating repositories is no longer scarce, and coding is no longer a reliable benchmark for technical skill.
In that world, software-as-creation-process has to prove itself in a more tangible sense: latency, cost per unit of work, conversion, reliability, margin, time-to-decision. Numbers that survive contact with production—not demos that survive contact with a slide.
Show the impact. Ship what you can measure. In the face of slop, accountability is the scarce input.
