This is the core philosophical divide in modern software development.
The "vibe coding MVP" crowd treats code as disposable—ship fast, validate the idea, and discard it if it doesn't work.
The problem: most MVPs never get thrown away. They get customers, then funding, then "we'll refactor later" becomes "we can't afford downtime to refactor."
That's how you end up with production systems built on prototypes that were never meant to handle real load.
I'm with you: if you're not willing to build it properly, don't build it at all. Technical debt compounds faster than most founders realize.
The Twitter mob defends vibe coding because it worked once for someone. However, for every success story, there are thousands of companies struggling with unfixable codebases.
Do it right or don't do it. There's no "we'll fix it later" in production.
> However, for every success story, there are thousands of companies struggling with unfixable codebases.
> Do it right or don't do it. There's no "we'll fix it later" in production.
The first statement is largely true, but the second one is the wrong lesson to take from it.
Most startups accumulate tech debt due to resource constraints: time, budget, people. If they followed “do it right or don’t do it”, they wouldn’t exist.
What’s needed is conscious management of that tech debt. Good tech management understands that. As soon as it’s feasible to do it, you need to start devoting resources to addressing tech debt. “We can’t afford downtime to refactor” is what a manager who doesn’t understand that says.
The “companies struggling with unfixable codebases” are the ones that didn’t try to manage their tech debt until it was too late.
The "vibe coding MVP" crowd treats code as disposable—ship fast, validate the idea, and discard it if it doesn't work.
The problem: most MVPs never get thrown away. They get customers, then funding, then "we'll refactor later" becomes "we can't afford downtime to refactor."
That's how you end up with production systems built on prototypes that were never meant to handle real load.
I'm with you: if you're not willing to build it properly, don't build it at all. Technical debt compounds faster than most founders realize.
The Twitter mob defends vibe coding because it worked once for someone. However, for every success story, there are thousands of companies struggling with unfixable codebases.
Do it right or don't do it. There's no "we'll fix it later" in production.