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The AI lifestyle subsidy is going to end
Or, why your digital experiences are about to get worse.
Venture capital and zero interest-rate policy supplied a ton of money for any startup that could demonstrate strong growth - even if they were growing by selling customers $20 of services for $10. (June 2025) ChatGPT and friends today are powerful token-generating machines that can use their existing body of trained material, search the internet, and synthesize a reasonable summary to start. Kevin Zhang (East Wind) argues that the current valuations of Anthropic, OpenAI, Mistral, and other “frontier AI” companies can only be justified if they can monetize free users through ads.
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