The Window That's Closing: Why AI Costs Will Go Up, Not Down

The largest technology companies on Earth are spending money at a rate that makes no economic sense.

OpenAI. Anthropic. Google. Meta. Microsoft.

Billions. Then tens of billions. Then hundreds of billions committed.

They're not doing this to make a better chatbot. They're not competing for your $20 a month subscription. They're racing to build something else entirely—the infrastructure layer that will sit beneath all software, all business, all work for the next fifty years.

They're competing to become the next operating system of the global economy.

And to win that race, they're subsidizing heavily.

Wartime Economics

What should cost hundreds costs twenty. What should be enterprise-only is available to anyone. The API calls that power real applications are priced below their actual cost—sometimes far below—because market share matters more than margin right now.

This is wartime economics. The giants are bleeding each other to win.

Think about it: these companies are spending more on AI infrastructure than most countries spend on their entire technology budgets. Data centers. Chips. Energy. Talent. The burn rate is staggering.

They're not doing this out of generosity. They're doing it because whoever wins this race gets to be Microsoft in 1995. Amazon in 2005. Apple in 2010. The platform everyone else builds on.

To win, they need developers building on their platforms. They need businesses dependent on their tools. They need ecosystems so deep that switching becomes unthinkable.

So they subsidize. They price below cost. They give away capabilities that should be expensive.

You're Standing in the Crossfire

Here's the thing most people don't understand: the shrapnel from this war is valuable.

Right now, you can access capabilities that cost these companies real money to provide—for almost nothing. The tools that let you build custom software, analyze data, generate content, automate workflows—they're priced for adoption, not profit.

This is temporary.

When one of these companies wins—or when they all get tired of bleeding—the prices go up. The free tiers get smaller. The subsidies end.

If you're a small business owner waiting for AI to "mature" or "prove itself," you're asking the wrong question. The maturity isn't the issue. The price is. And the price is artificially low right now for reasons that have nothing to do with you and won't last because of you.

The Historical Pattern

This has happened before.

Remember when cloud storage was effectively free? When every startup could spin up servers on AWS for pennies? When the land grab for users meant companies would give away enormous value just to get you on their platform?

Those days are over. AWS is a profit machine now. Cloud costs are a real line item. The companies that built on that cheap infrastructure during the growth phase have a structural advantage over those who waited.

The same thing is happening with AI. Right now.

The companies that figure out how to use these subsidized tools—not just to be more productive, but to build real capabilities—will have advantages that persist long after the prices go up.

The ones who wait will pay full price to catch up.

What This Means for You

If you're running a small business, you're not the target customer for OpenAI or Anthropic. You're a rounding error in their market share calculations.

But you're also the beneficiary of a war you didn't start.

The tools that were built for enterprise customers, priced for adoption, are available to you right now. The same capabilities that Fortune 500 companies are deploying are sitting there waiting for anyone who bothers to use them.

The question isn't whether AI is ready. It's whether you're going to take advantage of the window while it's open.

The Gap Will Widen

Here's what keeps me up at night.

The big companies will be fine. They'll adopt AI eventually—slowly, expensively, bureaucratically—and they'll survive because they have the capital to absorb their own inefficiency.

Small businesses don't have that luxury.

When the subsidy ends and building gets expensive again, when the giants have AI woven into everything they do, the gap between big and small won't just return to normal. It will be wider than it's ever been.

The wave is lifting everyone right now. Small and big, same water level.

But the wave is temporary.

The businesses that build capabilities now—while it's cheap—will keep those capabilities when it gets expensive. The ones who wait will be trying to catch up at full price while their competitors are already miles ahead.

The Window

I don't know how long this window stays open. Nobody does. It depends on how long the giants are willing to bleed, how the competitive dynamics shake out, whether regulation intervenes.

What I know is that it won't last forever. The economics don't support it. At some point, the prices will reflect the actual cost of providing these capabilities.

When that happens, the opportunity to build cheaply disappears.