> start charging what the models actually cost to run

The political climate won't allow that to happen. The US will do everything to stay ahead of China, and a rise in prices means a sizeable migration to Chinese models, giving them that much more data to improve their models and pass the US in AI capability (if they haven't already).

But also it'll happen in a way, as eventually models will become optimized enough that run cost become more or less negligible from a sustainability perspective.