zlacker

>>laurex+(OP)
I disagree with the idea that LLM providers are deliberately designing solutions to consume more tokens. We're in the early days of agentic coding, and the landscape is intensely competitive. Providers are focused on building highly capable systems to drive adoption, especially with open-source alternatives just a git clone away.

Yes, Claude Code can be token-heavy, but that's often a trade-off for their current level of capability compared to other options. Additionally, Claude Code has built-in levers for cost (I prefer they continue to focus on advanced capability, let pricing accessibility catch up).

"early days" means:

- Prompt engineering is still very much a required skill for better code and lower pricing

- Same with still needing to be an engineer for the same reasons, and:

- Devs need to actively guide these agents. This includes detailed planning, progress tracking, and careful context management – which, as the author notes, is more involved than many realize. I've personally found success using Gemini to create structured plans for Claude Code to execute, which helps manage its verbosity and focus to "thoughtful" execution (as guided by gemini). I drop entire codebases into Gemini (for free).

>>ramoz+xm
Hi! Author here. I don't actually think they're deliberately doing this, hence my choice of "perverse incentives" vs. something more accusatory. The issue is that they don't have a ton of incentive to fix it.

Agree with you on all the rest, and I think writing a post like this was very much intended as a gut-check on things since the early days are hopefully the times when things can get fixed up.