- AI-generated pull requests are overwhelming open source maintainers, with many PRs being formally correct but low quality, leading to maintainers like those at tldraw, cURL, and Ghostty banning or auto-closing AI contributions.
- The flood of bad PRs is causing real contributors to stop submitting contributions altogether; instead, they fork projects and modify them privately, breaking the feedback loop that drives open source growth.
- The cost of contributing has flipped: it's now cheap to write code with AI but expensive to get it merged, so developers prefer self-sufficiency over communication.
- Cloudflare rebuilt Next.js with AI for about $1,100 in API tokens, using Next.js's own documentation and tests as a blueprint, highlighting how open source assets can be used to create replacements.
- The feedback loop between makers and users is breaking down as individuals build their own minimal versions of SaaS products using AI, avoiding sign-ups and payments entirely.
- The seed library metaphor illustrates the loss of visibility: gardens are thriving but gardeners are disconnected, and the need for a platform to share forks and patterns is emerging.