> Currently there's no reason for why I shouldn't use Claude Sonnet to write one time bash scripts, once it starts costing me a dollar to do so I'm going to change my behavior.

This just isn't going to happen, we have open weights models which we can roughly calculate how much they cost to run that are on the level of Sonnet _right now_. The best open weights models used to be 2 generations behind, then they were 1 generation behind, now they're on par with the mid-tier frontier models. You can choose among many different Kimi K2.5 providers. If you believe that every single one of those is running at 50% subsidies, be my guest.

> start charging what the models actually cost to run

The political climate won't allow that to happen. The US will do everything to stay ahead of China, and a rise in prices means a sizeable migration to Chinese models, giving them that much more data to improve their models and pass the US in AI capability (if they haven't already).

But also it'll happen in a way, as eventually models will become optimized enough that run cost become more or less negligible from a sustainability perspective.

I also have this feeling. But do you ever doubt it. that when the time comes we will be like the boiled frog? Where its "just so convenient" or that the reality of setting up a local ai is just a worse experience for a large upfront cost?