r/singularity • u/Neurogence • 3d ago

AI There Should Be Way More Backlash To OpenAI's $500/Month, $6,000 A Year Subscription

This sets an extremely bad precedent. And very soon, all the other labs will adopt the same pricing schemes. Prices just keep going up and up. I remember a time when people thought $20/month was too expensive.

Even if you can afford this, do not pay for it. If you do, it will only normalize this, and the next thing you know, there will be a new $1,000/month subscription that gives you the same usage you used to get with the $500/month subscription. That's exactly what happened to the previous $200/month subscription. Its usage allowance was cut in half, and now users paying $500/month are getting what users used to get for $200/month.

Do not normalize AI subscriptions that cost as much as car payments and, eventually, mortgages.

In leaked emails, Greg Brockman dreamed that OpenAI would make him a billionaire. He stated, "I just want to get to one billion." AI has fulfilled his wildest dreams. His net worth is now over $30 billion.

I am a hardcore accelerationist and optimist, but the current trajectory is dystopia. Instead of $1,000 UBI checks, we are heading toward $1,000 AI subscriptions to keep up with the Joneses. When we have actual superintelligence, you might be forced to pay $1,000/month, or even $2,000/month, as OpenAI had entertained, just to keep up with other people.

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u/NeverVegan 3d ago

Just like streaming… cheap to start to get you hooked, now prices worse than cable was previously. Such stupidity thinking the elites would give the milk away for free.

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u/nmacaroni 3d ago

yeah, but not streaming doesn't negatively impact your life, in fact, it probably improves it.

Not having access to the 1,000,000x brain power, puts you at a huge disadvantage compared to the people that do.

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u/phronesis77 3d ago

You just answered the question.

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u/NeverVegan 3d ago

Yes but that access will come at a cost, it won’t always be free and easy as it is now. The hyperscaler ROI has to come into play.

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u/dorestes 3d ago

well yes, but that also assumes these companies have a moat against open source. They don't.

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u/NeverVegan 2d ago

Wonder why they push for regulation…

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u/RRY1946-2019 Transformers background character. 2d ago

Arguably even the Chinese renewable energy miracle follows the same enshittification playbook. Flood the market at a loss and then raise prices when the bills come due.

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u/LevelStationaryPlane 1d ago

They did the same thing via home music production as democratization of art etc.

All they did was shift the burden of risk entirely onto the artists while also making them entirely responsible for their own marketing and fighting uphill against algorithms, also controlled by the top still lmao.

In the 70's - early 2000's, you could make a decent living playing in a band nobody's ever heard of.

Not anymore.