Affordability is not the current goal.

Vendor lock-in is the current goal. Consumer prices are a drop in the bucket comparatively.

How can you lock in when the harnesses are basically thin clients around the APIs and you can replicate them using agents in a short period of time? I haven't seen a compelling thesis yet for how you achieve vendor lock in for LLMs. Claude Code is a bit sticky, but if we're being honest its just because Codex doesn't have all the same features yet.

Luckily the industry is much too wise, after a couple of decades of cloud infrastructure, to willingly opt to make itself entirely dependent on one of two platforms with opaque and complicated pricing. We've learned our lessons, oh yes

Maybe they just need the competition to run out of funding first?

That’s an impossible goal; it’s too easy to switch models.

And Microsoft forced M365 subscriptions to include AI for +$30/license.

Cheap, but gave them a massive user base they can claim is using AI