AI subscriptions are subsidized. Here's what happens when that stops.

Right now, every time you send a query to ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, the company behind it is losing money on you. Not breaking even. Losing money. OpenAI spent $1.69 for every dollar of revenue it generated in 2025 and is projecting $25 billion in cash burn this year. Even its $200/month Pro plan - the most expensive consumer AI subscription on the market - loses money on heavy users. Anthropic's gross margins were negative 94% in 2024, and its CEO has said publicly that if growth slips from 10x to 5x per year, the company goes bankrupt. These aren't scrappy startups - OpenAI just closed $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation - but even at that scale, the math is tight. We've all seen subsidized tech before. The question that keeps coming up is what happens when this subsidy stops. Here's where I think this goes: 1. The blunt approach: higher prices, lower limits. The most obvious move. Either your subscription goes up, or your usage limits go down. Both are ways to close the gap