this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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I like listening to Ed Zitron stuff, though admittedly part of it is AI Doomer comfort food, but one of the drums he beats is that the spend is absolutely obscene, and they’re going to have to start dramatically dialing up the prices, and soon, to have any chance at all of converting to profitability.
From what I’ve seen, even people who like AI won’t pay for anywhere near as much as they’re using now while it’s free or flat rate.
Zitron's point that management are stupid is really important. They don't know what they're talking about. They don't do any work!
We are ruled by the worst fucking people.
They are talking about $200 pro tiers for the good models. The only way I will still be using them is on a pay per token basis for really important or time consuming stuff where I can justify the spend. Certainly not worth it just as a Google search where I don't have to sort through the results myself.
I think they are hoping they can make a bunch of businesses so dependent on them that they can't afford to leave. Which could work, but probably not enough for them to become profitable.
On the individual side, maybe they are hoping to exploit a bunch of whales but I can't see people on average be willing to pay for what it actually costs.
people pay for AI? as individuals?
In small but statistically and financially significant numbers, yes, absolutely.
The bigger paradigm shift will be moving corporate users to per-token pricing, and that’s the one that will really kill Anthropic and OpenAI (and maybe Oracle) if it doesn’t go how they need, but there are way more actual people spending money on AI than one might think… or hope.
maybe thats why they are trying to peddle it to governments , since thats a constant revenue stream and htey dont ask too much questions.