I think it's easy to talk past one another on this subject. To be sure, I love Claude code. I wish I could pay for several years in advance at today's prices.

But the consumer's is not the important perspective for the AI hype cycle. It's the investors' perspective. I'm going to guess that well over a trillion dollars has gone into "AI", including the major labs and all the little "agents for XYZ" startups popping up every day. From the investors' perspective, that better pay off several times over in profit, not revenue, in the next few years. Prices will go up, but competition is fierce and nobody will be able to command a high margin. How are they going to make trillions in profit with razor thin margins?

This will make the very mention of "AI" toxic for most investors sooner than later.