> I bought a book however many years ago with no previous development experience and delivered a Web app people paid for and eventually honed that as an actual career, so I’m just not really seeing what’s a difference in kind here.

So you taught yourself how to program. Do you not see that there's a difference between teaching yourself how to program so that you could build a web application and using a new technology that allows you to build a web application without having to learn how to program?

I get that people have differences of opinion but it seems to me like you're being intentionally obtuse here. Learning how to program to build web applications is not the same as learning how to use a new technology that can build web applications for you without you having to learn how to code.

> I also disagree with the “democratization” frame because now developers are spending like $1000 per month on tokens at their jobs, which does the opposite of making things more accessible.

I'm curious: if you're already working as a developer and your employer values your skills, why do you have to spend anything on tokens? Are you not able to do your job satisfactorily without AI?

The "democratization" has nothing to do with people working as developers. The "democratization" refers to the ability of a growing number of smart, motivated people who don't know how to program to create working software using AI.