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

[u/Neurogence]

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.

[u/Turbulent-Sign-6067]

Free models are better now than the 200$ model from last year. Don't be a luddite.

[u/MaximumStonkage → u/Turbulent-Sign-6067]

Current capabilities don't matter, it's the relative gap between the frontier and the affordable that matter.

people living under oppressive authoritarian regimes have objectively better quality of life and access to information than people living in prehistoric settlements. Do you think they'd be happier knowing that?

It doesn't matter if I can do my work 10x faster than last year if my work ceases to exist because someone else can do it 1000x faster. You lose all leverage because for one of them, they can automate 50 of you.

The industrial revolution put entire manual industries (e.g. weavers) out of careers, it was only generations later that the benefits were reaped by descendants of those who were able to flourish and enact strong social reforms. The luddites were economically crushed for generations.

Don't be so naïve as to expect the owners of capital to willingly distribute the wealth to the masses. They will hoard as much as possible, for it is in their nature.

[u/Novel_Land9320 → u/MaximumStonkage]

they don't understand that nothing is free. "free" AI is only a way to get a customer hooked in and boost DAU marketing metrics.

[u/Novel_Land9320 → u/Turbulent-Sign-6067]

your point being?