Buyer side perspective: i'm 18, shipped a product this year. the rate was never what i was looking at. it was whether the person could tell me what something would cost before they built it. a dev who scopes accurately at $300/hr beats one at $150/hr who doesn't every time. the llm thing is a separate question. the code either holds up or it doesn't, how it got there is a methods question not a morality one.