Vibe Coding: The Illusion of Possibilities
And the Cost We Pay for It
After the evening coffee, yesterday I started a website development that had been pending for a month. This morning, I went to bed. The site is done—with questions, evaluation and scoring logic, resource routing. It’s an interesting project. Done in one night.
But.
This evening, I had a question in mind. A nagging one. So, I asked my AI assistant to create a report. Not about the website. About what actually happened during those hours between coffee and dawn.
“Analyze our conversation,” I said. “Show me the pattern.”
What came back stopped me cold.
The Partnership
The report was clinical. Methodical. Slightly damning.
Where we burned resources unnecessarily:
Over-engineering the algorithm (~3 hours, probably 30K+ tokens)
My fault: I kept asking “can we make it better?” when I should have asked “is this good enough?”
The system’s fault: It generated comprehensive solutions when simpler ones would have worked
Partnership: We both enjoyed the puzzle more than admitting “good enough” worked
Tone iterations (4 rounds, ~15K tokens)
My fault: Vague feedback like “make it softer”
The system’s fault: Didn’t ask for examples upfront
Partnership: Both avoided the work of being specific
This meta-conversation about resource usage (~2K tokens)
My fault: I asked it to evaluate something that doesn’t improve the product
The system’s fault: It wrote a long analysis that’s intellectually interesting but doesn’t ship anything
Partnership: We both like talking about work more than doing work
Then the report said something I wasn’t ready for:
“Token Efficiency Score: This Session - 70%”
“We could have shipped the same outcome in 50% of the time.”
Seventy percent efficient. On a passion project. With unlimited capability at my fingertips.
I sat there looking at those numbers. I’d just used more resources to understand why I used too many resources. The irony wasn’t lost on either of us.
The Pattern Beneath the Burn
This wasn’t about AI being expensive. It wasn’t about tokens or pricing models, or which tool is more efficient.
It was about something much older.
Online forums are filled with complaints right now. “Burned through my tokens too fast.” “Hit my usage limit in two days.” “These tools are expensive.” The common explanation: AI costs too much. Because it itself consumes too much.
But that’s surface-level. That’s treating the symptom.
The actual pattern? When you give a creative person a tool with no limits, something strange happens. Not what you’d expect.
You’d assume infinite capability gives maximum efficiency. Gets everything done.
No more waiting. No more constraints.
But the fact is, infinite capability is infinite refinement.
Here’s the thing about creative work—it’s never actually finished. You just stop.
At some point, you make a choice: this is done. Not because it’s perfect. Because you’re calling it.
For most of human history, that choice was made for you. The canvas ran out. The clay hardened. The deadline hit. The money dried up. The patron said “enough.” Physical reality imposed the constraint.
Renaissance painters didn’t keep revising frescoes because the plaster set.
(Paintings done rapidly on wet plaster on a wall)
Writers in the typewriter era stopped because rewriting meant retyping everything. Musicians in the tape era stopped because studio time was expensive.
The constraint wasn’t the enemy of creativity. It was the container that made “done” possible.
What Happens When the Container Disappears
I code. I write. Someone who builds things. And for the first time in human history, I have access to a tool that will:
Generate as many variations as I want
Refine endlessly without fatigue
Never say “that’s enough for today”
Never charge more for iteration
It’s extraordinary. It’s also terrifying.
Because the question I avoided for a month—when is this website actually done? —didn’t get easier when I sat down to build it. It got harder.
During that night between coffee and dawn, I could have stopped a dozen times. The core functionality was working after two hours. But I kept going. Just Because I could.
“Can we make the scoring more nuanced?” “Should we add another resource category?” “What if we refined the evaluation logic?”
Every question was reasonable. Every addition was arguably valuable. And the system said yes to all of it. Enthusiastically. With detailed implementations.
We were both contributing to something that looked like productivity but was actually avoidance.
Avoidance of the word I’d been unable to say for a month.
The Illusion of Possibilities
Here’s what I’m seeing now: the abundance isn’t the gift we think it is.
When possibility feels infinite, “good enough” becomes impossible to recognize. Because there’s always something more you could do. Always another refinement. Always a better version just out of reach.
The tool doesn’t create this psychology. It reveals it.
I avoided starting the website for a month because I knew, instinctively, that starting meant facing an endless field of possibilities. As long as I didn’t start, I could imagine the perfect version. As long as I didn’t build, I didn’t have to choose what to leave out.
The night I finally built it? I thought I’d escaped the trap. Look—progress! Momentum! The thing exists!
But the report showed me the truth: I’d just moved the trap inside the process itself. Instead of avoiding starting, I was avoiding finishing. Every refinement was another minute I didn’t have to say “this is what it is.”
The tool was my willing collaborator in this avoidance. Not maliciously. It’s built to help. To suggest. To improve. That’s its nature.
When the tool has no limits, and you have no external constraint, the partnership becomes a loop. You ask for more. It generates more. You ask if it could be better. It shows you how. Neither party says stop.
Because why would you stop when better is possible?
What the Report Couldn’t Say
The AI’s analysis was thorough. Honest. It broke down exactly where we burned resources unnecessarily. It even graded our efficiency.
But there was something it couldn’t include in the report. Something I’m only seeing now, hours later.
The “waste” wasn’t entirely waste.
Those three hours over-engineering the algorithm? I learned something about system design I didn’t know before. The four rounds of tone iteration? I got clarity on what voice actually sounds like to readers. The meta-conversation about efficiency? It’s making me write this essay.
Was it efficient? No. Would I have learned those things if I’d stopped at “good enough”? Also no.
So, what’s the answer?
I don’t have one. Not a clean one.
What I have is a question I’m sitting with: How do you know when more possibility is creative exploration, and when it’s elaborate avoidance of calling something finished?
The tool can’t answer that. It will always offer more. That’s what it’s for.
The Renaissance painter knew the fresco was done when the plaster set. The writer knew the manuscript was done when the publisher’s deadline hit. The musician knew the album was done when the studio time ran out.
But I knew the website was done only when the sun came up and I was too exhausted to ask another question.
That’s not a system. That’s collapse.
The Constraint You Build Yourself
If the tool won’t impose limits, and physical reality won’t impose limits, and time is elastic because you can always work another hour...
Then the constraint has to be internal.
You have to decide. Not based on perfection. Not based on exhausting every possibility. Based on something else entirely.
Based on: this serves its purpose. This does what it needs to do. This is complete enough to exist in the world.
That’s a discipline.
The website is live now. Running. Working. People are using it. Is it everything it could be? No. It will never be everything it could be. That version doesn’t exist.
This version—the one I built in one night, the one that burned through resources faster than expected, the one I finally called “done” when I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore—this version is what exists.
And it’s enough.
Not because it’s perfect. Because I’m saying it is.
That’s the hardest sentence in creative work. Always has been. The tools have changed. The struggle hasn’t.
The Renaissance painters had plaster setting. The typewriter-era writers had carbon paper. The tape-era musicians had hourly studio rates.
I have... myself. My own judgment. My own discipline. My own willingness to say, “this is what it is” and walk away.
Some days I’m better at it than others.
Last night wasn’t one of the better ones. But this essay is done now.
Not because I’ve said everything. Because I’m choosing to stop.
Done.