My AI bill just went way up

The author, a technologist with a software studio, observed a significant increase in their Anthropic AI bill and argues that the current low pricing of AI services is a deliberate strategy by frontier labs to capture market share, with venture capital and cloud giants subsidizing the difference. OpenAI, for instance, reportedly booked approximately $13 billion in revenue in 2025 while incurring a $21 billion operating loss, spending about $1.60 for every dollar earned. This artificially low pricing, according to the author, distorts decision-making processes, leading businesses to automate tasks that might otherwise remain with human employees if priced at their true cost. The author expresses happiness about the rising AI costs, viewing it as a necessary correction that will realign the perceived value of human expertise against AI capabilities. The concern is not that AI will become expensive, but that businesses will make irreversible decisions, such as eliminating human roles like writers, support staff, and analysts, based on these temporary, subsidized prices. Losing these human employees means losing institutional memory, relationships, and judgment that AI cannot replicate, and rehiring such expertise can be challenging once lost.