Thread by @Coelasquid

Everyone pointing out that it’s suspicious how many AI tools are free, it’s because building a tech company these days 100% revolves around giving people your product for free/at an extreme discount until they forget how to function without it, then closing the jaws of the trap

The easiest example of this is Uber operating on massive losses for a decade so they could offer their service at an unbelievably cheap rate long enough to train people not to call cabs anymore. A lot of young people coming up now don’t even know “calling a cab” is a thing

Air BnB is another really classic example, they were the “cheap alternative to hotels” until they became a ubiquitous travel accommodation solution, then suddenly rooms started costing $400 a night.

But the more abstract version is when you look at how google won the search engine wars and became the most popular way to look for things, even as the results started to turn into narrow, flawed garbage, barely anyone knows how to look for things without google anymore

And most insidiously, how streaming trained people to stop buying real media and pirating things, so they can completely control tour access to media as a subscription service

So yes, obviously they’re hoping you’ll all feed your novels for data, but even more than that, they want you to turn AI into an inseparable part of your creative process, so when they eventually ask you to give them money you won’t know how to live without it

It’s the “first one’s free” drug dealer model applied with the end goal of turning human creativity into a subscription service.