I've been a software developer for 25 years, and 30ish years in the industry, and have been programming my whole life. I worked at Google for 10 of those years. I work in C++ and Rust. I know how to write code.
I don't pay $100 to "vibe code" and "learn to program" or "avoid learning to program."
I pay $100 so I can get my personal (open source) projects done faster and more completely without having to hire people with money I don't have.
I'm talking about the general trend, not the exceptions. How much of the code do you manually write with the 100 dollar subscription? Vibe coding is a descriptive, not a prescriptive, label.
"How much of the code do you manually write"
I review all of it, but hand write little of it. It's bizarre how I've ended up here, but yep.
That said, I wouldn't / don't trust it with something from scratch, I only trust it to do that because I built -- by hand -- a decent foundation for it to start from.
Sure, you're like me, you're not a vibe coder by the actual definition then. Still, the general trend I see is that a lot of actual vibe coders do try to get their product working, code quality be damned. Personally, same as you, I stopped vibe coding and actually started writing a lot of architecture and code myself first then allowing the LLM to fill in the features so to speak.
Came here to write something similar (Of course, other than working in Google) and saw your comments reflecting my views. Yes, Its worth pending $200/month on Claude to get my personal project ideas come to life with better quality and finish.
Why would you ever hire someone to help with a personal open source project?
Depends on if the goal is to solve a problem (by writing code) or the goal is to write code (maybe solving a problem)
I wouldn't, but I can pay Claude