Access to strong AI will become expensive and limited
20 episodes in 12 months · 24 total · first in March 2025
Access to the strongest models is first given and then restricted — by price, by limits, by identity checks and even by citizenship. Behind this is physics: there is simply not enough electricity and computing power for a billion users, and a cheap model does not give the same quality.
So the $20–200 “free lunch” will end: truly strong AI will cost as much as a good employee. Put spending on models into the budget as a separate line — next to payroll.
Happening now. Already coming true: in No. 122 (June 2026) Anthropic switched off Fable 5 for everyone, and in No. 168 (September 2026) OpenAI closed sales of the $200 Pro plan — and whether it will bring it back is unknown.
Where to start
Do not take today's $20–200 for strong AI as the price forever.
Put spending on strong models into the budget as a separate line, next to payroll.
Meanwhile base models and APIs are getting cheaper: it is access to the very strongest ones that is getting more expensive and being closed off.
“But for now we won't see this appear, we only see the cost of models via API getting cheaper, models improving, performance improving.”
When I said it
Quotes
“Sam Altman said four months ago that AI agents would start appearing that would cost twenty thousand dollars. That's already a very interestingly flagged thing, that there's clearly going to be a story where surely it ca- it can't be the same for everyone.”
“And Fable's availability for tokens—that's availability only for people with very big money. That's tens of thousands of dollars.”
“But you've heard about this on the ToTheMoon channel very many times. I've been talking about this really a lot for the last two weeks. And I tell all people everywhere that you can see from the behaviour pattern of Anthropic and OpenAI that these companies are starting to restrict access to their systems not for the US, not for Americans.”
“I keep waiting for a new plan, like, so there'd be more. Here they're closing the $200 plan. I'm not sure they'll bring it back.”