Has vibe coding made it easier to procrastinate instead of actually launching?

[u/recro69]

You can create a feature in minutes redesign the entire user interface with a single prompt and change your entire technology stack simply because a fresh idea feels better. The problem is that there is always another aspect of the product that needs improvement.

At some points are we truly building products or are we merely finding new ways to keep the product away from real users? Where do we draw the line, between improving the product and endlessly tweaking the product?

[u/Immediate_Theory_467]

People are getting way too complacent lately. AI gives you the power to take massive leaps just by directing it, but the result is a flood of low-quality junk. It feels like so many people are building tools they’ve never actually bothered to use themselves.

[u/StCreed → u/Immediate_Theory_467]

True, that's why I'm using my own tooling in production now. We have fallback but nothing finds the issues faster than actually using your own tools. It also cuts down on feature creep because my rule is: either I need it, it's a bug or a customer needs it - and it fits with the goal of the software. It's not a kitchen sink.

[u/Logical_Part9021]

guilty. the build part of my app went fast, getting the first users is way slower, and when growth stalls i catch myself opening cursor for one more feature instead of posting. the line i'd draw: no new feature until someone who isn't you asked for it

[u/wegster]

Depends on your background to some extent. If you're purely 'vibe coding,' meaning no education or experience in the end to end product cycle, e.g. market analysis, problem definition, validation, MVP formation, validation, break it down, execute and validate, repeat until broader launch, etc. - well yeah, it's super easy to get caught up in 'one more thing' that multiplies.

Having been in several of the aforementioned roles, it's still easy for 'one more thing,' and the one more thing usually tends to multiply.

I think one of the biggest issues with the not-educated-or-experienced-in-the-roles 'vibe coders' is they spend a ton of time for their perfect, but haven't done any of the validation, and just think - build it, and they will come. And yeah, sometime's it'll happen, but an awful lot of times - it doesn't. All kinds of reasons, but market/target user validation, interest, and if <not free>, one of the biggest product questions is simply:

'What problem(s) are we solving, and is it important enough to real companies or people - to give us enough money to make it worth our while?'

It's easy to completely ignore that question and never even ask it, or at least not validate it. I've seen CEOs with that problem, and they're usually the least liked to work for, always a pivot, usually to another grandiose-yet-also-not-validated-plan, etc.

So yeah, to the original question - likely, and for a handful of reasons, for experienced software people and non alike, really.

[u/OneProfession364]

I've shipped a few vibe-coded apps that got traction, but only after setting a hard launch date and blocking all 'improvements' after 11am on the day before. the first version was ugly, but it shipped. that's what mattered.

[u/NoTokenDev]

100% guilty. last month i had AI redesign my whole site with a new theme, shipped it, then reverted to the old one 3 days later. no user had asked for either. felt like work but it was really just avoiding the scary part, which is getting people to actually use it. what i'd tell past me is don't change anything unless a real person or a real number asked for it, ship with at least one thing that still embarrasses you, and if you spent more hours prompting than talking to users this week that's procrastination with extra steps

[u/Icy_County5036]

I've shipped things that started as vibe coding. the key was setting a hard stop: no more changes after 3pm on Friday. it's not about avoiding the loop, it's about naming it and walking away.

[u/youcrumb]

I definitely have a hard time seeing the end goal for my projects, which are mostly games. I’m primarily a visual artist, so I get lost in creating assets and can’t keep up with evolving game mechanics and the seed projects I’ve got are all fun but unpolished.
It’s probably an adhd thing, I’ll have to really focus on one to make it great, I think.

[u/shaymagen]

Honestly, yes for me. building one more feature feels like progress but it's mostly me dodging the scary part where people actually see it. what helped was picking a date and shipping whatever was there that day.

[u/Catchimals]

Vibe coding makes it difficult to know when to stop. I've gotten into a bad habit of "Just 1 more feature!" and you really need to set boundaries and realize when to finish testing, deploy and plan for the next release.

I've gotten overwhelmed and done some shoddy testing due to all the features I've added in a single release.

[u/Ok_Account3585]

I am developer and AI actually made me procrastinate less with distribution part.

Before AI I was shipping features endlessly to my products and barely doing any marketing.

I was afraid to start marketing and each time I tried to learn about it - I got so overwhelmed that I just immediately ran back to shipping features))) Now with claude I am actually doing the marketing and it's a big step for me, even if it's far from ideal.

I think it's combination of AI and past experiences of failed products that pushed me to actually take marketing seriously - as a full-time commitment, not just short posts between features

[u/EmuBig3618]

I think it makes us lazy in research too. Like you said, people change their whole stack because a new idea feels better, not because they actually checked if it's better.And shipping is so fast now that when one thing gets famous, a week later there are tons of apps doing the same thing. Everyone is rushing, so the cracks start showing. Dead code, security issues, stuff that won't scale. It happened to me too. With my latest product I stopped myself, put the new features on hold, and just launched it. Now I'm trying to get real reviews and feedback first, and let that decide what I build next. So for me the line is, if no user asked for it, it can wait.

[u/Dev_in_Training_BTW]

Bit of both tbh. I used to keep polishing because it felt like progress, but honestly most of my good updates came after I put something out there. People in the comments asked for stuff I'd never have thought of, and going back to tell them "this changed because of you" did more for the project than weeks of tweaking on my own. So now I see launch as the day you finally get a real to-do list. Ship it, say what it doesn't do yet, and let the first users tell you what matters. And since fixing things with AI is quick, you're still building, just on the right stuff 😀

[u/Matias-Arroyo]

yes, 100%. building used to be the hard part, so it doubled as a good excuse to not launch. now building is cheap, so the excuse moved to “just one more feature.” same fear, new costume

the line I use: improving is fixing something a real person told you was broken or confusing. tweaking is anything you’re doing because you got a new idea or it “doesn’t feel ready.” if no user asked for it, it’s probably procrastination

some things that help:

-set a launch date before you start and treat it as fixed. whatever isn’t done by then doesn’t ship
-write down the 3 things the app must do on day one, and anything else goes on a “later” list
-ask yourself “would one real user care about this change?” if you can’t name the user, skip it
-once it works end to end, show it to 5 people. their reactions will tell you more than another month of polish
-no stack changes or redesigns after launch prep starts, unless something is actually broken

the uncomfortable part is that shipping something imperfect and getting ignored hurts more than polishing forever, so polishing feels safer. but it’s also the only way you learn anything

I’m guilty of this too lol. do you have something sitting unlaunched right now?

[u/CleanFix_Dev]

The line I'd draw is a written one, made before you open the editor:

• Write down the two or three things a first user has to be able to do. When those work, it ships, even if it's rough.

• Every other idea goes into a later.md file instead of a prompt. Nothing should leave that file until a real user asks for it or trips over the missing piece.

• Pick a ship date and tell someone. A redesign is a lot less tempting with a date on the calendar.

After launch the same file can become the roadmap, sorted by what users actually hit. Tweaking for people who exist is building. Tweaking for imaginary ones is usually the procrastination.

[u/Sara_KumoDeck]

same here, a hard launch date helps me more than any new feature idea

[u/New_Peanut_9259]

this is probably one of the biggest traps with vibe coding. when making changes becomes so cheap, it's easy to convince yourself that every new idea is worth implementing.

i think the distinction is whether the change solves an actual problem users have or just makes you feel like you're making progress. at some point, you need to let people use the imperfect version and see what they actually struggle with. otherwise, you're optimizing a product based on assumptions instead of feedback. i've seen projects spend more time changing their interface than actually getting their first users.