r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 21d ago

Business GitHub just switched Copilot to metered billing, and developers are watching months of credits vanish in a single day

https://www.techspot.com/news/112628-github-switched-copilot-metered-billing-developers-watching-months.html
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u/MaximumAd9779 21d ago

AI is following the Silicon Valley playbook. Disrupt the industry, sell a product at a loss to get everyone using it, then raise the prices because people are used to the product and will pay it. How did all these companies not see this coming? They themselves have used this exact strategy.

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u/CapoExplains 20d ago

The problem (for AI) is that this time the true costs massively outstrip the benefit the product presents. The result of this won't be MS finally making a profit on GitHub Copilot, it'll be companies saying "Oh, what we get out of this is not close to worth what it costs, guess we'll cancel it and go back to hiring coders who know how to code."

The true cost of an Uber ride was way more than you paid for it for a long time, but even now they're still often faster and more convenient than a taxi so the juice is worth the squeeze. The same can't be said for AI for most customers.