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Ask HN: Which developer tool got worse as it became popular?
What tool do you think was better before it became widely used?
What changed? More features, more complexity, worse defaults, enterprise stuff, etc.
And did you switch to something else, or just keep using it?
Interested in specific examples rather than “everything was better before.”
- blinkbat 2mo agoI remember github being faster in the past.
- DLA 2mo agoAnd stable
- toomuchtodo 2mo agoPostman
- GiorgioG 2mo ago100x this.
- thepasch 2mo agoClaude Code Feels like, as it got more popular, it turned from a developer-focused tool dogfooded by the people who worked on it and constantly shipped new features that meaningfully increased quality-of-life and DX into the classic obligatory enshittification-maxed product designed to maximize engagement, lock-in, monetization, publicity, data collection, and control.
- mukundzha6 2mo agocorrect.i rarely use claude because of its usaiblity tier. 5 or 6 messages and you are done. that feels very bad as an normal user.i use chatgpt instead.slightly less better but good to use.
- Chnmy 2mo agoWhich developer tool got better as it became popular?
- toomuchtodo 2mo agohomebrew and uv, imho.
- Gouala 2mo agoMight be offtrack with this one but... Jira. It was much simpler and faster. Now it's one of the most convuloted tools and it's actually a pain to use. Linear kind of resolve that. I know I know, it's not per say a development tool, but without Kanban or project manager, it's hard to do anything.