AI is creating a new kind of inequality — and developers in the Global South are living it

AI is creating a new kind of inequality — and developers in the Global South are living it Everyone's talking about AI tech debt. About the hidden costs of AI-generated code, the maintenance burden, the reliability risks. But there's a conversation nobody's having: the inequality baked into who can afford to take those risks in the first place. The $20 problem When a developer in San Francisco uses GitHub Copilot ($10/month) + ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) + Claude Pro ($20/month), that's $50/month on AI tools. Uncomfortable, maybe. Career-threatening? No. When a developer in Lagos, Manila, or Nairobi considers the same stack: $50/month = 25-40% of their take-home salary One month of "AI tools" = groceries for a family The risk calculation is completely different So they skip the tools. Or they pirate. Or they fall further behind. The productivity gap isn't technical. It's economic. The tech debt trap Here's the cruel irony: the same developers who can least afford to experiment with AI too