OpenAI Is Taking the “Crack Cocaine” Approach to Pricing
TL;DR
Futurism frames OpenAI’s pricing path as a lock-in accusation: give people cheap or free AI access, make it part of daily work, then move them toward metered usage. The pressure point is cost. The article cites OpenAI’s reported loss rising from 5 billion dollars in 2024 to 39 billion dollars in 2025, while noting that part of the 2025 figure may be accounting-related.
Nauti's Take
The crack comparison is loud, but the underlying mechanism is more ordinary: AI companies built usage habits before the true price tags became visible. A flat-rate plan feels simple for casual users.
For heavy users, it is a subsidy that eventually has to shrink. Anyone using AI in production should start measuring cost per workflow now, before an agent turns one bad run into a serious bill.
Briefingshow
If AI shifts from subscriptions to metered consumption, teams that rely on chatbots, agents, and API workflows will have to budget differently. The winning setup will not only be the model with the best answers, but the stack that makes usage visible, caps runaway jobs, and keeps automation from turning into an open-ended invoice.
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