this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2026
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It is obvious to me that AI computing is a COMMODITY, in that it will inevitably be something that can not be effectively gate-kept.
These two major US companies (OpenAI and Anthropic) are playing the game of “locking in” a monopoly in a product category that has yet to mature. This is a pretty old capitalist game, of course… Uber, Microsoft, facebook,and many others have played this game in the past.
But, unlike OSes or word processing file compatibility I don’t see a “network effect” in that an open source/weight model can/will do 99% of what a proprietary model can, will do it “transparently,” will eventually become so optimized that it can run locally, etc. etc.
I mean: maybe its name recondition that is worth “trillions” but a race to be “Xerox” or “Kleenex” or even “PC” (as in IBM PC) did not really work out well for these companies.
I think that even the established players (MS, Google, etc.) are biding their time, making sure that they don’t get locked out while non-proprietary solutions become feasible.
I means I know that much of the issues have to do with the limited availability of hardware, but locking down supply is not sustainable for the “big 2” and sooner or later more adequate memory and GPU supply will enter the market…
It will never reach the scale of use they claim unless it becomes a commodity.
Commodities, a famously low-margin game. I wonder what the new companies that pick over the corpses of Anthropic and OpenAI will be like!
And if it does, it won't ever cost as much as they need it to, to justify their valuations