AI Labs Sold Cheap Software That Destroyed Their Own Customers
What Adobe v ArtCraft teaches us
OpenAI and Anthropic pitched AI software engineers to replace expensive developers, but selling that power for $20 a month let hobbyists clone products like Photoshop in a weekend. Free open-weight models from Meta and Chinese labs make it impossible to raise prices. The labs now face a trap: cheap pricing dismantles their customers' toll-booth businesses, while expensive pricing kills demand and invites free alternatives.
Cheap kills the customers. Expensive kills the demand. Pick your poison, and either way, the people holding the poison are AI labs.