This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I'm sorry, did everybody else not see this coming from miles away? This is the private equity playbook.
When something is too good to be true, you ALWAYS have to be ready to either jump ship, massively change how you do things, or pay through the nose.
Yeah - people are talking about replacing jobs with AI. As if it is not totally obvious that people like Sam Altman will totally bleed you dry after you fired all your workers. You will not save on your wage bill, you will simply give the money to Sam Altman
Wages are treated as an immediate operational cost, while AI is framed as a capital investment. This accounting distinction makes AI look like a long-term asset, whereas labor remains perpetually categorized as an expense.
Only if you are running your own servers. You dont get to depreciate a SaaS subscription or metered bill.
Pretty sure they picked the wrong tech to try and lock people into. It isn't hardware and doesn't have some kind of proprietary interface that takes time to get used to when switching. Some models might be better than others at specific things, but not enough to justify the prices they are going to charge for output you have to review and fix.
This is literally the easiest thing to jump ship from.
That's the stupidest thing about these AI companies' valuation.
They don't even really own anything!
Their models -- their main proprietary IP -- are not copyrightable or patentable, and not legally protected in any way. Any competitor can copy them at any time and then offer the same service for cheaper, without the overhead costs for training. The giants of the AI industry could easily be undercut and replaced at any time.
The unique thing about GitHub Copilot (and all the other vibe-coding tools) is that they're speed-running the playbook because this shit is not profitable. It can't be. Their costs scale up with usage, unlike every other business that can take advantage of economies of scale, so they've skipped the slow, steady enshittification phase and jumped directly into the "squeeze blood from this stone to keep the scam going a little longer" phase.
I've been preaching this for the past couple of years. Everything up until now has been entirely about gaining market share, and AI will never be cheaper than it is right now, and it's not cheap.
Just look at the "earnings" for companies like openAI. They are 1000+% in the red. It's impossible for them to change their sales model enough to make that profitable. As more data centers go up, the operating costs are also going to go up.
I've been telling people that now is the best time in the past decade or more to learn how to code. There will be positions available in the coming years when the only junior devs available are vibe coders.
The angry devs from this article are idiots
I have some sympathy for these people, but some don't seem to realize that Microsoft is not going to be upset over them leaving. They are not valuable to Microsoft as users. If they are unable or unwilling to pay now, Microsoft wants them gone. They are being shown the door. Making a post about deleting your copilot+ subscription or whatever is like bragging about being kicked out of a nightclub.
I remember having to sit down my boss and explain how it can only become more expensive over time. It’s the big tech playbook after all. Didn‘t matter. I‘m told again and again how AI is only becoming stronger and cheaper. Especially during salary negotiations. Nasty stuff. They know I know it‘s BS and they still cling to this nonsensical narrative because it would be very beneficial to them and very bad for me.
The crazy thing is, this isn't really a "squeeze" in the traditional sense. The problem was that every single mainstream AI product has been heavily subsidized....because it's wildly expensive and not even close to being profitable.
That sort of subsidization was only going to last for so long. The dam is starting to crack. People aren't ready to pay what AI truly costs.
The slop is now prohibitively expensive. Good.
Every single person who mentions using AI for anything- any reason at all- all I can do is imagine what face they would make if I spat in it.
Said like someone who doesn’t understand that AI is a tool that can greatly improve your work life and productivity.
If I was you I’d do some research into it, especially around GitHub copilot, and get learning - or you’re going to be left behind. If you’re a dev then you are signing your careers death warrant by having that attitude.
Actually it can be a very useful tool, if you know what you're doing. Expensive in real terms, so only for tasks which are worth it. So perhaps not for making annoying cat videos.
between anthropic going ipo for cash and this, I think we're seeing the edge of the bubble
Why would anyone use Copilot when you have so many other options. Cursor just released Composer 2.5 and it's actually decent. I should have a job right now doing this.
Because subsidized plans can't be used at enterprise. Enterprise pays expensive api rates
Oops. Now that users are being to made to pay something closer to the true cost of AI inference, no one will like using it anymore. Could this be what ultimately sets off the bubble *collapse?
Delightful tears. Thanks.
Joke's on them, I never used it.
Another thing that greatly improves productivity is not relying solely on AI to do your job for you.
Good devs don’t rely on it to do their job, but use it to do their job better and more productively.
As a dev, copilot is amazing.
My friend who uses Claude daily says it saves him a hell of a lot of time doing all the routine work, which he verifies. It's not AI's fault if devs are sloppy, or if non-devs think they can type "Code an accounting system" and go get coffee.
Local AI it is then. Not that I'm using all that much now anyway...
Where I work, Chinese models are banned due to legal concerns. Not just in production, on any company-owned machine. That basically eliminates all the decent open weight models. I’m imagining this type of policy will be more widespread. Because of the potential for legal woes if systems and people are dependent on these models and then federal or state laws impose harsh penalties with little time to react.
The 2 remaining devs using Copilot will leave it.
It's rare to see such a clear example of first-mover disadvantage as GitHub Copilot.
You mean you guys don't rotate between 10 free accounts and use their monthly quotas?
That many free accounts is against their user agreement though hehe
What are they gonna do, close your accounts and make you sign up for 10 more? lol
Push Chinese models. Deepseek, kimi, qwen etc.
No datacenters locally and local oligarchs won't have that much power over us. They won't be lobbying that much against humans if local oligarchs can't make money
Yeah, empower chinese models, instead! That's the solution!
You are not empowering them if you run them locally
I would argue - fucking empower them. Less money for us AI companies, less human firings.
Stall and delay them for as long as we can.
Don't chatgpt, deepseek it.
"For basically nothing'... If it's basically nothing then use your damn brain to do it.
can't do good business with bad people.
I was still using my copilot account, figured I’d see how the new pricing worked. I blew through 60% of my max+ limit in 1 day on absurdly light usage, promptly cancelled rather than upgrade from the $39 / month plan to the $100 /month plan.
I do think there’s a productivity help from AI but vibe coding everything is miserable and gives awful results. Targeted AI usage makes sense and I’ll refine my local AI usage and tooling for that.
