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I get its necessary for investment, but I'd be a lot happier with these tools if we didn't keep making these wild claims, because I'm certainly not seeing 10x t

I get its necessary for investment, but I'd be a lot happier with these tools if we didn't keep making these wild claims, because I'm certainly not seeing 10x the output. When I ask for examples, 90% its claude code (not a beacon of good software anyway but if nearly everyone is pointing to one example it tells you thats the best you can probably expect) and 10% weekend projects, which are cool, but not 10x cool. Opus 4.5 was released in Dec 2025, by this point people should be churning out year long projects in a month, and I certainly haven't seen that. I've used them a few times, and they're pretty cool. If it was just sold as that (again, couldn't be, see: trillion dollar investments) I wouldn't have nearly as much of a leg to stand on

scotty79 8mo ago
Have you seen moltbook? One dude coded reddit clone for bots in less the a week. How is it not at least 10x of what was achievable in pre-ai world? Granted he left the db open to public, but some meat powered startups did exactly the same few years ago.
- Krei-se 8mo ago
  Because its a clone.
- bodge5000 8mo ago
  I mean as has already been pointed out the fact that its a clone is a big reason why, but then I also think I could probably churn out a simple clone of reddit in less than a week. We've been through this before with twitter, the value isnt the tech (which is relatively straightforward), its the userbase. Of course Reddit has some more advanced features which would be more difficult, but I think the public db probably tells you that wasn't much of a concern to Moltbook either, so yeh, I reckon I could do that.
  - scotty79 8mo ago
    Double your estimate and switch the unit or time to next larger one. That's how programmers time estimate tend to be. So two months and I'm right there with you.
    - bodge5000 8mo ago
      That only counts if its something you care about. If you throw maintenance out the window (eg you dont close off your db) it gets a lot easier
- coldtea 8mo ago
  Any semi-capable coder could build a Reddit clone by themselves in a week since forever. It's a glorified CRUD app. The barrier to creating a full blown Reddit the huge scaling, not the functionality. But with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and backends like S3, CF etc, this hasn't been a barrier since a decade or more, either.
  - spiderfarmer 8mo ago
    I think you’re wrong in several ways. Even capable coders can’t create a Reddit clone in a week. Because it’s not just a glorified CRUD app. And I encourage you to think a bit harder before arguing like that. Yes you can create a CRUD app in some kind of framework and style it like Reddit. But that’s like putting lines on your lawn and calling it a clone of the Bernabeu. But even if you were right, the real barrier to building a Reddit clone is getting traction. Even if you went viral and did everything right, you’d still have to wait years before you have the brand recognition and SEO rankings they enjoy.
    - coldtea 8mo ago
      >Because it’s not just a glorified CRUD app In what way (that's not related to the difficulty of scaling it, which I already addressed separately)? The point of my comment was: "Somebody with AI cloning Reddit in a week is not as special as you make it to be, all things considering. A Reddit clone is not that difficult, it's basically a CRUD app. The difficult part of replicating it, or at least all the basics of it, is its scaling - and even that wouldn't be as difficult for a dev in 2026, the era of widespread elastic cloud backends". The Bernabeu analogy handwavingly assumes that Reddit is more challenging than a homegrown clone, but doesn't address in what way Reddit differs from a CRUD app, and how my comment doesn't hold. And even if it did, it would be moot regarding the main point I make, unless the recent AI-clone also handles those differentiating non-CRUD elements and thus also differs from a CRUD app. >But even if you were right, the real barrier to building a Reddit clone is getting traction. True, but not relevant to my point, which is about the difficulty of cloning Reddit coding-wise, not business wise, and whether it's or isn't any great feat for someone using AI to do it.
- jimbokun 8mo ago
  1. Do you have insider knowledge of the Reddit code base and the Moltbook code base and how much it reproduced? 2. Copying an existing product should take a minuscule fraction of the time it took to evolve the original. 3. I glanced at some of the Moltbook comments which were meaningless slop, very few having any replies.
- Ygg2 8mo ago
  Have you seen the shitshow moltbook was? Anyone could insert themselves AI or not. Anyone could post any number of likes. This isn't a Reddit clone. This is Reddit written by Highschoolers.
- rsynnott 8mo ago
  Remember the Ruby on Rails hype? You could make a twitter clone in an afternoon! It obviously wouldn't work properly, but, y'know... This is, like, not the industry's first run-in with "this makes you 10x more productive!"

scotty79 8mo ago

Have you seen moltbook? One dude coded reddit clone for bots in less the a week. How is it not at least 10x of what was achievable in pre-ai world? Granted he left the db open to public, but some meat powered startups did exactly the same few years ago.

Krei-se 8mo ago
Because its a clone.
bodge5000 8mo ago
I mean as has already been pointed out the fact that its a clone is a big reason why, but then I also think I could probably churn out a simple clone of reddit in less than a week. We've been through this before with twitter, the value isnt the tech (which is relatively straightforward), its the userbase. Of course Reddit has some more advanced features which would be more difficult, but I think the public db probably tells you that wasn't much of a concern to Moltbook either, so yeh, I reckon I could do that.
- scotty79 8mo ago
  Double your estimate and switch the unit or time to next larger one. That's how programmers time estimate tend to be. So two months and I'm right there with you.
  - bodge5000 8mo ago
    That only counts if its something you care about. If you throw maintenance out the window (eg you dont close off your db) it gets a lot easier
coldtea 8mo ago
Any semi-capable coder could build a Reddit clone by themselves in a week since forever. It's a glorified CRUD app. The barrier to creating a full blown Reddit the huge scaling, not the functionality. But with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and backends like S3, CF etc, this hasn't been a barrier since a decade or more, either.
- spiderfarmer 8mo ago
  I think you’re wrong in several ways. Even capable coders can’t create a Reddit clone in a week. Because it’s not just a glorified CRUD app. And I encourage you to think a bit harder before arguing like that. Yes you can create a CRUD app in some kind of framework and style it like Reddit. But that’s like putting lines on your lawn and calling it a clone of the Bernabeu. But even if you were right, the real barrier to building a Reddit clone is getting traction. Even if you went viral and did everything right, you’d still have to wait years before you have the brand recognition and SEO rankings they enjoy.
  - coldtea 8mo ago
    >Because it’s not just a glorified CRUD app In what way (that's not related to the difficulty of scaling it, which I already addressed separately)? The point of my comment was: "Somebody with AI cloning Reddit in a week is not as special as you make it to be, all things considering. A Reddit clone is not that difficult, it's basically a CRUD app. The difficult part of replicating it, or at least all the basics of it, is its scaling - and even that wouldn't be as difficult for a dev in 2026, the era of widespread elastic cloud backends". The Bernabeu analogy handwavingly assumes that Reddit is more challenging than a homegrown clone, but doesn't address in what way Reddit differs from a CRUD app, and how my comment doesn't hold. And even if it did, it would be moot regarding the main point I make, unless the recent AI-clone also handles those differentiating non-CRUD elements and thus also differs from a CRUD app. >But even if you were right, the real barrier to building a Reddit clone is getting traction. True, but not relevant to my point, which is about the difficulty of cloning Reddit coding-wise, not business wise, and whether it's or isn't any great feat for someone using AI to do it.
jimbokun 8mo ago
1. Do you have insider knowledge of the Reddit code base and the Moltbook code base and how much it reproduced? 2. Copying an existing product should take a minuscule fraction of the time it took to evolve the original. 3. I glanced at some of the Moltbook comments which were meaningless slop, very few having any replies.
Ygg2 8mo ago
Have you seen the shitshow moltbook was? Anyone could insert themselves AI or not. Anyone could post any number of likes. This isn't a Reddit clone. This is Reddit written by Highschoolers.
rsynnott 8mo ago
Remember the Ruby on Rails hype? You could make a twitter clone in an afternoon! It obviously wouldn't work properly, but, y'know... This is, like, not the industry's first run-in with "this makes you 10x more productive!"