Whichever token seller defects can capture a larger chunk of the market with slimmer code.

Do you think the average vibe coder or AI-smitten suit cares about slim code? A lot of folks still think "LOC = good" in 2026. It will be a hard sell for the practical engineer.

Even if they understand "slim code = fewer tokens = less spend" they still have to grok that less code is not less functionality.

They are supply constrained at the moment so they still have incentive to keep it short