Six days ago, we published a piece arguing that every AI subscription is a ticking time bomb for enterprise. We did not expect the fuse to be quite this short.

Excerpt:

The IPO Math Forces the Issue

Both OpenAI and Anthropic are on IPO timelines for the second half of 2026. OpenAI completed the largest private funding round in history in April, $122 billion at an $852 billion post-money valuation. Anthropic has reportedly surpassed $30 billion in annualized revenue. Massive numbers, both of them. Also both attached to companies that are still burning cash at extraordinary rates.

Public markets will not tolerate the gap between subscription revenue and compute cost that has defined the past three years. The moment either company files, analysts will demand unit economics that show a path to margin. Usage-based billing is the fastest way to demonstrate that path.

None of this contradicts the repricing thesis. The pricing war is the last land grab before the gate closes. Both companies are spending aggressively now to lock in users whose switching costs will make them sticky when prices rise. OpenAI offers two months free. Anthropic offers 50% more capacity. Both expire in July. What comes after July is the real pricing.

  • quick_snail@feddit.nl
    141·
    25 days ago

    My first thought is that companies that built dependence on AI workflows will just start hiring humans again.

    But I think it’s more likely they’ll just switch to free, self-hosted AI models.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
      9·
      25 days ago

      But I think it’s more likely they’ll just switch to free, self-hosted AI models.

      Implying anyone left there will even have the know-how to set one up

      • quick_snail@feddit.nl
        31·
        24 days ago

        Wow, you just convinced me to learn how to do something with AI.

        It’ll be a very useful skill to help companies migrate from third party to self hosted AI in the next decade

    • Cityshrimp@lemmy.world
      7·
      25 days ago

      Still not “free” even if self-hosted and I would think perf and accuracy would be noticeably worse.

      My company started using AI in coding process a lot more now but its only because the AI responses are useful 80% of the time. If its lower than that, not worth the time to use for most tasks.

      • quick_snail@feddit.nl
        2·
        24 days ago

        I don’t really think it matters. Companies that have adopted AI are already fucked. It hurts more then helps.

        But they’ll be willing to thow VC money at hiring people to setup AI systems, despite how much worse it leaves them

    • magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2·
      24 days ago

      The whole point of cloud was that renting wholesale infrastructure is cheaper and less hassle than building your own.

      There’s no way anything but a sliver of dependent companies are capable of hosting their current LLM usage.