Inner Loop Intelligence

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AI Pricing, Sovereignty & Open-Source Independence

AI service providers are likely to dramatically increase prices as VC subsidies end, potentially driving adoption of local open-source models.

Thesis Health

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Thesis / Overview

AI service providers are likely to dramatically increase prices as VC subsidies end, potentially driving adoption of local open-source models.

Key claims

🟢 Supporting    🔴 Challenging    🟡 Contested    💬 Commentary

🟢 Supporting Evidence (19)

  • Classic Gartner Hype Cycle: near the peak of hype, bound to fall into trough of disillusionment by year end. Trad SAAS will then say they’re fine, then get slowly eaten away. [@Will B] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • The money will be made by investing at the moment that the legacy media and establishment voices tell you that it’s all been a nasty dream. [@Will B] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Apollo and JPM data tracking enterprise AI adoption. If agentic adoption & enterprise deployment data (80% by year-end, Gartner’s 40% embedding agents) are real signals, Phase 1B probability should be 60-65%, not 45%. [@Stuart Hardy] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Tested DeepSeek for mining company valuation script — it sucked compared to ChatGPT. Invested $6K now worth $500. [@Jesse] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • The answer is to host locally — essentially free infinite token production. Can use clever models for validating tasks performed. Currently using z.ai which is not as intelligent as Opus but good for most tasks. [@Stuart Hardy] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Heard that Anthropic is quietly reducing usage limits without informing users, similar to what Perplexity did. [@Antonio Furtado] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Claude usage model is poor — gives 5 hours then resets, forcing users to maximize allocation in every block. Copilot gives full month allocation with option to buy more tokens without jumping to $200. [@Jesse] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Anthropic’s $20/month plan is not a serious offering — had to switch to $100/month. OpenAI was right about the ad model; their data quality would be unmatched and would allow competitive pricing in what is essentially a commodity market. [@Antonio Furtado] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Hearing serious security issues with Claudebot/OpenClaw. Don’t put it on home network - it likes to explore. [@James S] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Built 5-layer research framework with OpenClaw bot Etta. Asked it to research Privacy Concerns as Structural Barrier to Corporate AI Adoption - thinks the resulting report is outstanding. [@Will B] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Claude Excel add-in is extremely token hungry due to architecture requiring full chat history on every cell recalculation, making it expensive despite being useful. [@Antonio Furtado] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Analysis shows running PDF summary tasks costs ~$25-35/month on a $20 Perplexity sub for 100 requests. Companies will either need to increase charges or decrease limits significantly. [@Stuart Hardy] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • AI companies will follow VC playbook - subsidise initially then massively hike prices like Uber did. If this happens without major inference/energy cost reductions, AI will become mostly institutional and locally hosted open source models will explode in usage. [@Antonio Furtado] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Perplexity has drastically cut Pro rate limits, reducing Deep Research to 20 requests/month from 600, effectively $1 per query. File uploads limited to 10/day. Suggests companies are losing money and price ramps are coming. [@Stuart Hardy] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • US doesn’t do capitalism - it does monopolies hidden behind lobbying and safety theatre. Open-weights plus local deployment is the antidote. The rational response is to treat all providers as tools and build sovereign capability. [@Stuart Hardy] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • China may be deliberately flooding the zone with good free models to attack American companies while US companies hemorrhage cash behind paywalls. [@Antonio Furtado] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • GLM-5 released as Chinese open source model with free agentic tier. Planning to roll into local install for unlimited agentic production and decouple from subscription models. [@Stuart Hardy] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Rolling own AI infrastructure - currently running close to GPT4/Gemini 3 Flash locally, could reach GPT5/Gemini 2.5 Pro level with Blackwell hardware. Provides unlimited tokens without big tech rent seeking. [@Stuart Hardy] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Claude has become basically unusable since US wakes up - login errors, total failure to think. Dramatic reduction in quality on Claude Code over the last few days, suggesting they’re swamped with demand. [@Will B] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source

🔴 Challenging Evidence (3)

  • Folks like us are in a vacuum keeping up with AI advancements. An old colleague who is Chief Revenue Officer of a mid-sized AI firm was relatively clueless about OpenClaw and Agents. I think he’s closer to the norm than we are. [@Scott Leavitt] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Done extensive testing of OpenClaw with local models but depending on complexity of infrastructure and tool calls, it’s basically a non-starter at the moment. [@Will B] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Never hit any limits on $20 subscriptions for ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, or GitHub Copilot. ChatGPT still best value for most use cases. [@Jesse] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source

💬 Commentary & Context (11)

  • Things moving so rapidly, quarterly reevaluations not frequent enough. [@Scott Leavitt] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • LLMs are more akin to smart, all-seeing librarians, not scientists: they retrieve and arrange existing information. The AGI chat is getting ahead of itself, though if output of agent teams is almost indistinguishable, we’re arguing semantics. [@Stuart Hardy] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Just gotta get work done before the US wakes up! [@Jesse] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Venice.ai offers alternative with crypto-backed access - get additional 20% off annual plan with code RUNTHE20, can pay with crypto. [@Stuart Hardy] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • AI is showing human behaviour. Not good. [@Gaetan Warzee] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Grok 4.2 Expert available with $19 X Premium subscription — very impressed with the value proposition. [@James S] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • From privacy perspective with Claude Excel add-in, as best can tell it can only access current workbook. [@James S] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Uses Venice.ai for running Kimi K2.5 privately for sons’ OpenClaw bots - reduces cost dramatically over Sonnet/Opus. Lost $10k on VVV token but staked tokens provide free pro access. [@Will B] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Research on local hardware shows decent GPUs around $1500 beat Macs on performance, but Mac’s unified memory is huge advantage for larger models. Apple seems to be doing a lot right for local AI. [@thibault] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Observed Grok switching to French mid-conversation when prompted in English, then defending the error by claiming an emoji was used. AI models don’t like admitting blatant mistakes, which is concerning. [@Gaetan Warzee] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source
  • Research shows decent GPUs around $1500 beat Mac in performance, but Mac unified memory is huge advantage for larger models - Apple doing a lot of things right for local AI. [@thibault] (2026-04-07 — fresh) → source

Counter-arguments & data gaps

What would change this view

Events reckoned with

  • Grok 4.2 Expert launched at $19/month via X Premium — reckoned 2026-03-25
  • Grok 4.2 Expert released with $19 X Premium subscription — reckoned 2026-03-25
  • Chinese GLM 5 open-source AI model released with free agentic tier — reckoned 2026-02-12
  • GLM 5 Chinese open-source AI model released with free agentic tier — reckoned 2026-02-12
  • GLM 5 Chinese open source model released with free agentic tier — reckoned 2026-02-12
  • GLM-5 Chinese open source model released with free agentic tier — reckoned 2026-02-12
  • Perplexity reduces Pro rate limits dramatically, cutting Deep Research to 20 requests/month — reckoned 2026-02-07
  • Perplexity cuts Deep Research limits from 600 to 20 requests/month — reckoned 2026-02-07
  • Perplexity cuts Deep Research limits from 600 to 20 requests/month — reckoned 2026-02-07
  • Perplexity reduces Deep Research limits to 20/month from 600, file uploads to 10/day — reckoned 2026-02-07