Post #1172319

2026-04-15 16:28 UTC

I have to assume that the business that are laying off employees and replacing them with inferior cheap AI systems, are going to have a similar experience to those who cut cable bundles and went to streaming services. Oh, did they slowly ratchet the prices up on you, and now you are paying way more than you ever did? How surprising.

Replies (10)

@bynkii@mastodon.social 2026-04-15 17:42

@jamesthomson@mastodon.social it’s the drug dealer model. Literally. “Oh, are you now completely hooked on our product, to where stopping using it would take months if not years? Cool, cool, here’s your 150% price increase.” “We can’t afford that!” “Have you considered eating out less?”

Open ##1172318
@aburka@hachyderm.io 2026-04-15 16:29

@jamesthomson it's so obviously and transparently the business plan

Open ##1224956
@WarnerCrocker@mastodon.social 2026-04-15 16:32

@jamesthomson Been saying the same for quite some time. Still waiting for the first company to say we're doing this to decrease costs AND also going to reduce our prices. Might has well wait for Godot.

Open ##1224957
@nick@toot.cafe 2026-04-15 16:45

@jamesthomson depends on how much vendor lock-in there ends up being. If AI labs keep releasing open-weight models, and that’s what the business tools are built on, there will be healthy competition to keep prices low since the API providers are commodified.

Open ##1224958
@zcutlip@hachyderm.io 2026-04-15 17:56

@jamesthomson Yeah I’ve been thinking about this for a while. If companies are terrified of engineers unionizing, they’re going to love it when they’ve fired all the engineers, and now depend on one of three or four large AI companies who has them over a barrel Edit: I should say fired and/or deskilled

Open ##1224959
@richard5mith@mastodon.online 2026-04-15 18:19

@jamesthomson Sadly, local AI models will still come for many of these roles. Replaced by a couple of Nvidia cards in a cupboard, with only the electricity to pay for.

Open ##1224960
@Voline@kolektiva.social 2026-04-15 19:31

@jamesthomson So what's the labor-market equivalent of BitTorrent?

Open ##1224961
@mike@thecanadian.social 2026-04-15 20:43

@jamesthomson A mantra from the old days was big tech always screws the channel. You can modify and apply the same philosophy to big AI. If you're a small business the remedy is the same as it was years ago, run open source models on your own gear. You know the rug pull is coming, take advantage of the cheap loss leaders, and pivot to your local models when it comes.

Open ##1224962
@arthur@rosafamily.social 2026-04-16 01:45

@jamesthomson the thing that’s so funny to me is the prices have already started ratcheting up before they did the layoffs!

Open ##1224963
@njf@social.lol 2026-04-16 11:01

@jamesthomson it sucks because I went from “oh these AIs kind of suck there’s no way they will replace that many jobs“ to “it doesn’t matter whether they suck, CEOs have been convinced they are fantastic and there will be massive job loss regardless“

Open ##1224964