I think as compute gets more expensive, as opex starts to push the upper limits and law of diminishing returns kicks in, as political pushback gains power, as prop AI models like openai and claude begin to try to create more and more ways to gain revenue (25$ for a code review), I do genuinely think that this will be the fire that ignites open source AI. Open source will always be a step behind centralized models, and right now it's not a huge burden to just pay 200 a month and have a shit ton of claude code credits. But the moment anthropic & openai quit subsidizing compute they will cut down on what you can use, and it will start to feel more and more like a microtransactions business and you'll begin to question if it's even worth paying for it This is my very short 6-12 month thesis $tao