The High Interest on the AI Loan: Why "Vibe Coding" is a Maintenance Nightmare

The Great Illusion of Technical Egalitarianism Today, everyone—from venture capitalists to liberal arts enthusiasts—is intoxicated by the era of "Vibe Coding." We are drowning in grand narratives about "Technical Equality" and the "Democratization of Tech." The crowd shouts that "Software Engineering is dead," and as the AI agents iterate, stock prices hit all-time highs. But while the world celebrates, we are choosing to ignore the Elephant in the Codebase : the rapid degradation of software qu