I don’t think fearing one’s job is necessarily a bad reason because as much as I love the idea of a Star Trek utopia, real and present people have real responsibilities like children which are cared for from money generated by their careers.

This is particularly relevant in societies which take a dim view of their social responsibilities (I’m looking at you America) which means there’s less of a safety net should that career disappear.

We are already seeing more developers than job vacancies is the tech market, so this isn’t a theoretical concern either.

That all said, I don’t think hiding our valuable code for fear of LLMs is the right solution either. If your code is really that good then you’ll be more likely to secure your career by sharing your code because it builds a visible reputation that extends further than any verbiage on a CV might.

So while I don’t agree with the LLM excuse I can still completely understand why someone might cite it as a reason not to open their source.

Another valid reason is that some people have been completely burnt out deadline with entitled complaints from users. Thankfully I’ve had a mostly positive experience personally but I’ve read that others haven’t been so fortunate.