It’s all fun and games… until your boss starts vibe coding
Brace yourselves for a barrage of AI-assisted garbage made by people who don’t know an API from an IPA.
We’ve officially entered the age of “vibe coding” — what a ridiculous name. In this new digital frontier, anyone can prompt an AI with, “Build me an app that’s like LinkedIn meets Tinder — complete with swipeable resumes, networking streaks, and flirty endorsement badges,” and then publish it without a second thought. Cringe-worthy, I know.
These tools spit out something that looks like a real product, and suddenly everyone’s acting like it’s 2008 and the App Store just launched.
The idea that no-code solutions can take the place of real development has been quietly gaining ground in the industry for a while now. A few years ago, the company I was working for put out a request for proposal (RFP) for a complex website build.
We found one agency we liked that quoted us around $100K — expensive, sure, but it made sense given the serious research, custom design, .NET content management integration, and a six-month timeline.
The then CEO wandered in and commented, “No way we’re paying that — can’t we just build this with Wix in like a week?”
That was the moment I realized he hadn’t listened to a single word we’d discussed in our meetings over the past three months.
Somewhere along the line, no-code tools like Wix and Canva have convinced people that digital products are simple. Drag, drop, add a stock photo, slap on a button — done.
Yes, these tools can pull off some neat tricks, but they’re no substitute for building a digital product from the ground up. Not if you need it to actually work, scale, or avoid crumbling at the slightest sneeze.
What we’re really dealing with is a psychological phenomenon known as the illusion of explanatory depth (IOED) — the tendency to believe we understand something in far more detail than we actually do.
In this case, people assume they grasp how complex systems work simply because they’ve built a polished front-end. But the illusion quickly unravels when they’re asked to explain or construct the underlying framework.
Worse still, these design-for-dummies platforms have emboldened non-designers and non-developers to skip the professionals altogether. Clients and stakeholders are suddenly cobbling together their own pages or websites — often with the elegance of a 2003 PowerPoint deck.
And now, vibe coding takes things to a whole new level. Never heard of it? Lucky you. It’s when people use AI tools to build entire digital products based solely on vibes. What does that even mean? It sounds like a ceremony you’d perform on a psychedelic retreat, not during product development.
They type in something like: “Make me a Gen Z-friendly team collab app with video meetups, synergy dashboards, hype analytics, and a dark mode aesthetic.”
Yeah… I think I just threw up in my mouth typing that.
If you think you don’t have enough time and resources to develop products properly now, just wait until vibe coding goes mainstream — when your boss starts asking, “Why can’t we just build this in a day?”
Now, vibe coding can make sense if you’re an experienced designer or developer — you’ll immediately spot off-kilter usability or spaghetti code. But to a boss, a client, or even a random marketer, it all looks “finished,” as if they’ve just saved the company $100K.
As the saying goes, you can polish a turd, but it’s still a turd — and you’re looking at is a digital product equivalent. A stitched-together no-code hack, riddled with design flaws and crawling with enough bugs to ruin a summer picnic.
But the damage is done. Pandora’s box has been opened, and there’s no stuffing the AI genie back in.
All we can hope for, pray for, is that the industry eventually rediscovers an appreciation for the handcrafted and human touch — artisan websites and bespoke apps — the digital equivalent of small-batch leather goods or a gorgeous farmer’s market sourdough. Imperfect, human, and not cranked out by a robot or someone who Googled “how to make a website” yesterday.
Until then, brace yourself for a deluge of vibe-coded monstrosities and AI-fueled eyesores. One day, we might look back on this era and say something we never thought we would:
“Man, I miss the days when our only gripe was Canva.”
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