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Addicted to Cursor

•3 min read

I'm addicted to Cursor.

On most days I spend ~8 hours inside it. At this point it's less an editor and more my OS. If the agent is idle, I'm not.

Starting from late 2023, when it barely worked, I evangelized it to anyone who would listen. I remember recommending it to a founder I just met, with 10+ years SWE experience. Days later we ran into each other and he couldn't remember my name, but he lit up about how much faster he was shipping. I've probably sent ~20 paying users their way.

I remember telling a close friend of mine Cursor will go places a few months after it launched and nothing about their traction was public. He laughed and said Copilot will just copy this. It's a fad and nobody will talk about it any longer in 6 months. He was wrong.

I still don’t understand how Copilot ceded the lead. They had distribution and a head start. It was exactly the kind of category where the lazy anti‑pitch “What if an incumbent just does this?” should’ve won. Nat Friedman seed‑investing in Cursor was a pretty loud tell in hindsight.

I haven't tried Windsurf. I'm sure it's good. But addictions don’t crave substitutes. My dental hygienist keeps pitching me green tea to save enamel, I keep ordering coffee.

A substitute would need to be 10x better. Friends swore Claude Code and Codex would be, so I tried. It's great and I get it, they have their own agent scaffold and maybe it's better than Cursor's. But I need those VSCode/Cursor features:

  • Chat history with tabs and checkpoints that lets me branch work
  • Dev containers that spin up cleanly with Docker
  • Jump somewhere and Tab Tab Tab
  • A file explorer that keeps context one click away
  • Pretty Git diffs
  • Keyboard shortcuts, including model and agent/ask toggles

Beyond coding, I write, outline and study in Cursor now. The ability to attach arbitrary md files to a chat and using them as live context feels like magic. Paired with Git, every other doc editor feels clunky.

At my startup we recently debated buying more observability tools. Six months ago it would've been a no‑brainer. This time I hesitated, would I lose the ability to use Cursor for bending the views I need quickly? So I cursored one in an afternoon.

Should I be worried about my addiction? Are there Anonymous Cursorers meetings? Do they serve merge cookies?

It's only an addiction if you can't afford it.

PS: This is obviously wrong. I just like this line from Industry.