Would we be better off?
I doubt it.
It’s definitely not better for the general public. Designers can’t even be replaced by AI as effectively as authors. They make things sorta ’look designed’ to people that don’t understand design, but have none of the communication and usability benefits that make designers useful. The result is slicker-looking, but probably less usable than if it was cobbled together with default bootstrap widgets, which is how it would have been done 2+ years ago. If an app needs a designer enough to not be feasible without one, AI isn’t going to replace the designer in that process. It just makes the author feel cool.
Well you're not going to build a web application if you're a designer, at best you can contribute to one.
Of course that's changing in their favour with AI too - and it's fantastic if they can execute their vision themselves without being held back because they didn't pursue a different field or career choice, without having to go on a long sidequest to acquire that knowledge.
I haven’t spoken to a single developer that doesn’t believe they’re too special to have to worry about that. There’s going to be a lot of people that think they’re in the top 5% of coders at their totally safe company that suddenly realize door dash is their best bet for income.
The idea that having more web apps is always a benefit to people assumes a never-ending demand for more web apps. The economy and job market aren’t jibing with that assessment at the moment. Fewer people getting paid for this stuff is just going to mean that the people on top will just get paid more.
