Late-stage capitalism yearns for a world without labor
Published by marco on
The article Uber Caps Usage of AI Tools Like Claude Code to Manage Costs by Simon Willison writes,
“The rideshare giant is limiting all employees to $1,500 in monthly token spending per AI coding tool, an Uber spokesperson said in response to a Bloomberg News inquiry. That means spending on one tool doesn’t have a bearing on the budget for another.”
That’s $18,000 per year, for those weak in arithmetic. Per tool.
The author approves, writing,
“A $1,500 monthly limit per tool strikes me as a rational policy response ”
Of course that strikes you, as a tech blogger, as a rational policy response because you, as a tech blogger are not running a struggling company. An extra $18-54K per year seems reasonable to you, the tech blogger, because obviously all of these LLM coding harnesses are worth that.
Should companies instead spend that money on the developer? Nah. How about on a course or education for $2-$5K per year? Not so much.
Labor costs are the devil, whereas technology costs are the savior.
This isn’t a cult. It’s a straight-up MLM.
Actually, MLMs are cults.
I just don’t know how much brain damage you need to have to just casually add $18K per developer per tool to the budget and think that this is something that is sustainable for 99% of companies. You know, those companies that don’t spend $330,000 median compensation package for software developers in the USA, as Uber does.
Most companies’ eyes would pop wide open at the increased productivity boost that just giving that $18K to the developer would engender.
But, no. They are much more comfortable sending that money to big Daddy in Silicon Valley because of course that makes more sense.
Almost no-one is asking about ROI anymore. No-one is even measuring anything. They’re just FOMOing their way to success.
