Firmware Engineer & Builder
Notes on software, AI, and building things that last.
Essays on engineering and ideas
Every cloud AI service you use has a cancel button, and you cannot click it. What it means when your AI capability is a business decision made by someone who has never met you, and the design that removes the button.
This is not an opinion piece, it is a spreadsheet. Add up every AI tool you pay for, multiply by five years, and compare the number with a one-time $1,999 purchase.
Every platform you ever loved got worse on purpose, because the incentives demanded it. Why AI tools are following the same trajectory, and the one business model that cannot enshittify its product.
The AI power user stack costs more than a used car, and unlike a used car it has zero resale value. The math behind five years of AI subscriptions, and the one-time purchase that ends the arrangement.
You do not own your digital life, you rent it, and the landlord can evict you at any time. Why a generation raised on platform deaths is rediscovering ownership, and what that means for AI.
The average Gen Z user runs 14 subscriptions totaling $267 every month and owns none of it. How the subscription economy turned software into rent, and what the exit looks like.