This has been bugging me.

ChatGPT came out. It was free. Everyone went mental. "AI levels the playing field!" "Anyone can build anything!"

For about six months? Yeah. It did.

Then better models dropped behind a £20/month paywall. People who paid £20 got better outputs. Better outputs meant better products. Free tier lot got left behind.

Then it went to £100. Same thing. Worse.

Now? People are buying stacks of Mac Minis. Five of them. Running their own AI at home. Tens of dollars a day just on compute. Before API costs. Before anything else.

Hundreds a month just to keep up.

And here's the bit no one says.

The people winning with AI right now aren't the smartest. They've just got the most money. That's it.

You could be unreal at prompting. Best ideas in the room. But if you're on the free tier and the bloke next to you has five Mac Minis running Opus — you're not in the same conversation.

AI went from "this changes the world for everyone" to "this changes the world for people who can afford it." 18 months. That's all it took.

And the VC money's drying up. So they're making it back from us. From consumers. New model. New tier. New subscription. Every few months.

I'm not saying pack it in. Sonnet's still good. Cheaper models still work.

But stop pretending the playing field is flat. It's not. It never was.

AI changed. Most people just haven't clocked it yet.

Luke

PS check out youtubersystems.ai or my communtiy skool.com/luke