On an overall speed/cost/quality comparison, it seems unmatched in my experience these days.

And trying to cover blatant racism with justifications like "tolerance of cultural and ethnic diversity" is cowardly. Just say you judge people who are different than you and are willing to break fundamental promises in order to make them go away.

But still social signals from others and especially screenshots are 1000x more important to me than an AI summary of the code base.

Ok? Are we all supposed to maintain a consistent view with this group of people? I don't understand your point.

Now apply that same line of thought to AI.

I've spent a lot of time browsing and using plugin/extension marketplaces. One of the main questions that you have when deciding on a plugin is your last one question - specifically the quality of the plugin and if does what it says it will do. But when I look at the EmDash marketplace, there is almost no way to judge the quality of the plugin (especially the UI/UX without screenshots) or if it actually does what it says it will do. And that is usually the first question you ask before going into the security and maintenance. Because if it looks terrible, slows down your site, and doesn't really work - who cares if it's maintained and secure?

What I am saying is that there are different levels of types trust when it comes to incorporating outside code into your project (in the form of packages/plugins/extensions):

1. Being able to quickly understand what the code does and what effect it will have (screenshots are pretty big here for CMS plugins)

2. Being able to examine the code before installation

3. Seeing feedback from others on the quality of the code and how well it meets the objectives

4 Limiting what the code can do once you install it

Right now the EmDash plugin catalog really only does #4. I don't see any screenshots of the UI of these plugins, there is no link to the repo, there is no indication if a plugin is used by 100 people or no one, and there is no feedback from anyone who has used it.

The bottom line is that there are several layers of trust that outside code has to pass before you even install it and consider what permissions to grant it. Ignoring that makes it very difficult for someone to start trying out different plugins. And it also makes me hesitant to develop a plugin, because it seems like it has very little chance of standing out from all the rest, even if it becomes popular.

Otherwise you just have to trust the random plugin publisher and the permissions/sandboxing doesn't really matter.