If there was a website called InfiniteAppStore, which contained every app imaginable, and where you could type in your search and it would return the code for that app, would you find that as satisfying to use as Claude Code?
On the surface this does not sound as satisfying, because it more resembles shopping than coding. But once Claude Code is finally tuned to do its job perfectly, you will essentially be using that infinite app store. You're actually using it right now, every time you use Claude Code — just an imperfect version of it.
If you enjoy using AI because it allows you to "will anything into existence", it's because the process is currently imperfect. Using Claude Code is closer to shopping than coding, but because the process is obfuscated, it feels like you're the one making the products in the shopping catalogue every time you place an order.
In that scenario the 'joy of creation' would just shift to the 'joy of discovery'. Both of which are innate to humans.
Trust me, the two are not the same, and are orders of magnitude different in terms of human satisfaction.
When I walk down a street, I get 10 people stopping me to ask "Where did you get that?". When I tell them I made it, their heads explode. I know which side of that interaction is more satisfying.
We also go all-out for Halloween, and at the big Halloween festival there is literally a line down the street of people waiting to take photos with us. We created something amazing.
People aren't going to line up for slop.
For folks who are not familiar, this is "The Library of Babel" by Borges. There is no creating, just selecting among characters sequences we already knew were possible.
If there was an infinite App Store, we wouldn't have scarcity and I'd be doing literally anything else other than selling my time for money. I'd also be killed because there's no point to my owners/the world keeping me around anymore in that scenario, except, maybe for my winning personality/companionship.
To be fair, the shoppers of the InfiniteAppStore can still bikeshed endlessly about the merchandise.