AI keeps getting expensive? What you think about this?
- Thread starter imedtchiv
- Start date
- Aug 28, 2026
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- 70
I think it is because of the infrastructure, development and costs of making them. First they give addiction to people then they increase the prices a little by little. A common practice for businesses.
- Aug 23, 2022
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Yes, and this is the main issue I have with AI. The current cost of things is high. The "replace people" concept backfired so hard and most big tech companies are silently rehiring staff they let go a couple of months ago.
As things stand right now, ai is too damn expensive to replace an engineer, it just wont work in the current tokenomics.
As things stand right now, ai is too damn expensive to replace an engineer, it just wont work in the current tokenomics.
- Dec 27, 2019
- 3,217
- 840
AI doesn't not make themselves expensive, humans who make them do. The good thing is there is competition among makers which is good for general users. When there is little or no demand, prices should drop
The Scarlet Pimp
Supreme Member
- Apr 2, 2008
- 1,435
- 4,349
It will be interesting to see what Oracle does within the next 10 months after they laid off 30,000 workers. Will the company keep their AI replacements or will the sacked workers be asked back due to the limitations of AI.
- Mar 2, 2012
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with the advancements in open weight models seeming to be behind by about 6 months, they wont be able to keep prices high in a few years when the hardware gets cheaper. Local LLMS will be to good to justify paying high api bills when you can run a model that is quite capable.
MeninaJohn
Newbie
- Sep 10, 2026
- 35
- 6
Yeah costs are going up but smaller models are also getting much better. I think using the expensive models only for harder tasks makes more sense now.
- May 2, 2010
- 10,087
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My subscription costs haven't gone up in over a year. thats not expensive to me. Thats reasonable value for money i think. $80 for 3 ai's a month? Compared to what i used to get from third world people on fiverr and the price i paid, its a steal.
AresWrath
Registered Member
- Aug 9, 2025
- 79
- 24
Actually, usage increasing significally by time (long context, tool use, coding agent,..),
Beside, some cost related to GPU, API, compute also raise
==> You can choose self-host, use API depend on your needs instead of monthly package / move to cheaper AI with open source
Beside, some cost related to GPU, API, compute also raise
==> You can choose self-host, use API depend on your needs instead of monthly package / move to cheaper AI with open source
bluchronic
Newbie
- Jan 18, 2024
- 49
- 19
If a company goes hard towards replacing employees with AI, it will be difficult to just rehire humans to do that work again after AI prices raise. It could be easily too expensive to pay for what is needed to revert back. AI companies know this and will be able to ballpark calculate the max they can charge. Cost is one part of it but it would incur issues, bugs, services interruptions, etc. Some companies will form using only AI from the start so it would be even more difficult to just hire a human to do the job.
Think about all the ancient computer infrastructure holding companies and government departments together by a thread nowadays. It's so much easier and safer to pay the new, higher bill and keep it running as is. It will be a similar situation to a company running some ancient services on an AS/400 bc it's too difficult/costly to change. Instead, you're soft-locked into ChatGPT, Claude, etc.
Think about all the ancient computer infrastructure holding companies and government departments together by a thread nowadays. It's so much easier and safer to pay the new, higher bill and keep it running as is. It will be a similar situation to a company running some ancient services on an AS/400 bc it's too difficult/costly to change. Instead, you're soft-locked into ChatGPT, Claude, etc.
- Feb 28, 2019
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The costs are currently high due to a sudden surge of demand. AI grew within 2-3 years due to a popularity of it as some alien tech unlike regular tech that takes 10-15 years to have a stable market. So, everyone poured in money to take their share of the market and things got complicated. The costs are high due to heavy investments and infrastructure. As the models advance, they'll find ways to deliver the same results with low-end models. Otherwise, people find it normal to use AI as a part of their lives and keep paying subscriptions along with other bills. These tech companies are also training the next generation to heavily depend on AI. So, they won't be able to do basic tasks without AI and the subscription won't matter to them as AI becomes a necessity.
RIDVAN AHRAZ
Junior Member
- Jan 21, 2019
- 100
- 29
In my opinion, the prices are still very reasonable; considering the technology used and the data involved, this amount is actually quite low.
cosmoaccs
Registered Member
- Jun 19, 2026
- 72
- 14
This is a fair point ngl quick q tho - u think the competition between AI makers is actually drivin prices down for the average user right now, or is it still mostly a race to burn VC cash n grab market share before anyone actually turns a profit? cuz feels like alot of these "cheap" tiers might not be sustainable long term
also when demand drops like u said, do u think prices actually go down or do companies just start cuttin the free/allocation limits instead to protect margins
