AI has completely ruined hackathons

A developer shares firsthand experiences judging and participating in hackathons over three months, arguing that AI and predatory company behavior have degraded the hackathon ecosystem. Key issues include: companies using hackathons to farm ideas for pivots (citing Wordware's $30M-funded event as a prime example), participants reusing winning projects across multiple hackathons to game job offers, AI making cheating nearly undetectable via vibe coding, and security failures like leaked API keys in public repos. The author contrasts bad hackathons with well-run ones like the YC browser-use hackathon, and calls for more accountability in the space.