It’s sad not because of AI itself but because of the companies behind AI: we are now paying for every single line of code we produce. That sucks

Weird you got downvoted for that. This is exactly the thing which has been bothering me about all of this.

Pre-LLM there are paid products and licenced stuff, but for the most part you could code in any language using free or community edition IDE's and mostly open toolchains. The total requirement for me as an individual to start using some language or stack is owning a computer and having internet access. Both provided by a stable market with consumer choice.

Post-LLM there is now this blackbox of a service which you depend on and for which someone is picking up a not-insignificant tab where the costs currently seem massively subsidised, and which is getting to be a requirement for your skill set. Open local models? Fine, but who is training them? How will those stay up-to-date?

Oh, and then there is the not-quite-insignificant ecological aspect and that bit where the powers-that-be seem to have collectively decided that copyright doesn't really apply here.