> Helping people write word docs, recipes, and emails isn't going to justify $15K per month subscriptions either.

Those things can all be done today on a $250 used video card and pennies of electricity

The subscription is certainly subsidized but its no where near 100x cheaper than API prices.

Heck, most large enterprise moved to usage based billing and are still happily paying for it. They are force multipliers for your top talent, and when a top engineer is being paid $500k a year, doubling their output for $500/day is a no brainer.