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Comment by teruakohatu | Hacker News Reader

I feel the points made in this article have been debated many times on HN.

The argument about power usage for developers, as opposed to consumers, is probably insignificant compared to the inefficient use of compute resources for deployed software today.

Arguably LLMs are probably enabling some web developers to create native applications rather than Electron monstrosities saving many P-core CPU cycles multiplied by the number of their users.

Optimising server applications with an LLM could eliminate unnecessary cloud servers.

Of course all the above could be done without LLMs, but LLMs can empower people to do this kind of work when they were not able before.

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> Arguably LLMs are probably enabling some web developers to create native applications rather than Electron monstrosities saving many P-core CPU cycles multiplied by the number of their users.

Does any such project exist, or are developers using LLMs to help them develop new Electron monstrosities? I think that if a developer has the sensibility to want to develop a native app, they will do so regardless, it's not that much harder.

The main point being: LLMs cost, but do something useful. Building slow applications just adds cost, but the utility is much more vague.

> The argument about power usage for developers, as opposed to consumers,

Except with MCP, essentially most consumers will become "programmers". See my other comment for the rationale (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43997227).

(TLDR: MCP lets non-programmers convert their prompts into programs, for all practical purposes. Currently there is a barrier to entry to automate simple tasks: The need to learn programming. That barrier will go away)

> Except with MCP, essentially most consumers will become "programmers"

You are more optimistic than I am. Most people I have seen are using LLMs are at best as an alternative to Grammarly or a document/web summary, or at worst making decision based on outdated LLM advice or as an inaccurate fact-engine.

The average person could code using Excel, but most don't even if they know how to use IF() and VLOOKUP().

That's because most people don't have access to MCPs. It will take 1-2 years to hit critical mass - once it's easy to plug in to ChatGPT and once major companies (e.g. Google for Gmail) provide easy to configure MCP servers.

> The average person could code using Excel, but most don't even if they know how to use IF() and VLOOKUP().

Using Excel (even without IF) is way more complicated than what I am saying. MCPs will enable people to program with natural language. It's not like vibe coding where the natural language will produce code we'll run. The prompt will be the program. You need to put in a lot more effort to learn the basics of Excel.

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