AI might actually expand developer autonomy rather than constrain it. Here's why: first, the switching costs drop significantly. When you've invested months mastering a specific platform or framework, you're naturally sticky to it. But AI can slash that learning curve friction—developers spend less time on proprietary tooling and more time shipping. Second, platform lock-in weakens considerably. Third-party dependencies become negotiable when you can regenerate code at scale. Need to migrate infrastructure or rewrite components? That's suddenly feasible at scale, not a multi-quarter nightmare. The result: devs gain real optionality. You're not trapped by accumulated knowledge or ecosystem gravity. That's a fundamental shift in how developer tools compete.