- There are already viable GitHub replacements, like Codeberg, Bitbucket, Gitlab, etc. Everyone stays on Github for network effects, not because of the superior product. You can't vibe code network effects.
- And yes, GitHub is a massive product with like 50 different huge features. No reasonable person would say you can trivially vibecode that. Vibecoding would still make it easier. I feel this argument is a bit silly, no? "Ah, you can't vibecode GitHub in a weekend? That proves vibecoding was a mirage!" Surely even the most fervent anti-AI skeptic must admit there must be some middle ground between "a mirage" and "can literally replace millions of man-hours of work".
OK, say you're proposing an in-house tool to host your repo to your boss. What do you think will sound better? "Let's use this random vibecoded app I just found"? Or "Let's use GitHub"?
First they came for the four nines
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a power grid
Then they came for the three nines
And I did not speak out
Because I was not paying for Enterprise
Then they came for the two nines
And I did not speak out
Because the status page said all systems operational
Then they came for the one nine
And I did not speak out
Because I was a manager, and outages are just extra standup material
Then they came for the coin flip
And there was no one left to merge my PR
Because Actions was down
And so was Pages
And so was Codespaces
And the status page said all systems operational
Everyone already has an account, so there's no friction to opening up issues, adding thumbs up to issues, using the discussion forum, etc. And while I think it's pretty silly, a lot of people take "10k stars on GitHub" to be a positive signal, and you can only get there when you have 10k people willing to star on your platform.
Turns out, the brand itself is a moat. There's never going to be another Google or Uber or Facebook or Twitter. Good or bad, GitHub is always going to have the name GitHub.
- And yes, GitHub is a massive product with like 50 different huge features. No reasonable person would say you can trivially vibecode that. Vibecoding would still make it easier. I feel this argument is a bit silly, no? "Ah, you can't vibecode GitHub in a weekend? That proves vibecoding was a mirage!" Surely even the most fervent anti-AI skeptic must admit there must be some middle ground between "a mirage" and "can literally replace millions of man-hours of work".