I have an affinity for small open source tools that do one thing and do it well. But those are just my preferences and I feel a little bit like an alien :)
This happens to everything from which a profit is extracted.
Perhaps there's a way to fund the training of "actually open source" models, but so far we don't have that (unless you count the Chinese government).
There should be a material difference between the tools.
There is.
vim / emacs / jetbrains - different tools to produce code.
Codex and Claude are different.
"yea it's dumber but it's nicer to me and i like the cool flashing colors so i'll use that"
It is like the employee who is slightly worse but is a brownnoser getting promoted more often.
And what do you know, that is what is happening. It is like the coke commercial with the nice music and beautiful person in the back.
Speaking of which, remember Pepsi Challenge? Coke lovers are like the claude code lovers.
And it really depends on the task. Is it a typical well defined bug, or is it simpel CRUD. Or does it require research, combining different sources of data in a complex and creative ways.
This is also why benches never show reality, and the only real understanding comes if you actually try to build something.
> isn't just a marketing delusion, but subjective joy
What is the difference? When a product is being marketed, isn't the subjective joy created by the marketing?
Or more specifically, for the case of coding agent harnesses, where many developers have experimented with a wide range of tools - someone might just favour the interactions with a specific one from their personal experience. Entirely unrelated to marketing.
> or because the interior design appeals to their sense of fashion.
Surely you'll grant me that the sense of fashion is mostly marketing in sheep's clothes?
Yes, I'll grant you that the choice of a coding agent harness is influenced by marketing to a much lesser degree than eg cars. I still think Anthropic does marketing way better than OpenAI!
[Edit:] I use the pi.dev agent. I was heavily influenced by its marketing: minimal and mit-licensed and espoused by the HN crowd. Do you think I read the source code and made an actual informed decision? Nah...
But also, as a driver, there is a clear difference between a Sienna and a 911. The differences are objective, but of course the preferences are subjective.
Repeat after me:
_Other people can experience things you do not experience and it is still valid, and not a delusion_. They are not sheeple who fell for marketing.
Sure, the subjective joy is valid, and yet it was 100% induced by marketing.
> They are not sheeple who fell for marketing.
People generally fall for marketing. Why do you think these specific people didn't?
No, obviously not.
> That’s what’s happening here.
No, that's not what's happening here.
> Marketing can get you to try something you wouldn’t have otherwise, and it may suggest benefits you’d get if you tried it, but your preference of using one thing or the other is a subjective experience of your own.
Marketing can very much shape your preferences and create wishes you didn't have before. That's why companies invest so much money in marketing.