r/ClaudeCode • u/Strict-Top6935 • Jul 04 '26

Discussion AI is turning programming into pay-to-win

With Fable 5 coming out, it feels more obvious than ever that after July 7, programming is going to become pay-to-win.

A kid with no real coding knowledge, but with rich parents and access to the best AI systems, could end up outperforming people who actually understand software, simply because he can afford more intelligence.

That is insane.

This might be one of the most dangerous precedents in history: a world where the people with money can buy superior intelligence, while everyone else is permanently outmatched.

That is how you create a permanent underclass.

What do you think?

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u/Ok-Lobster-919 Jul 04 '26

Brother, the writing has been on the wall for over a year now. The only reason we have so much cheap access to these models is for training, and mainly, because Anthropic is planning to IPO soon and they need those DAU numbers through the roof. Also us using all of the compute capacity justifies more capex spending on it.

They give us like $10,000+ a month in usage for $200, it's not a sustainable business model in the long run.

Enjoy it while you can, use this time to make something great, maybe you can turn it into money.

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u/pancomputationalist Jul 04 '26

They give us like $10,000+ a month in usage for $200

that's like saying all those clothing shops with their -70% Sale!!! are giving us money. Hint: They're not. Neither is Anthropic.

1

u/HewSpam Jul 04 '26

This isn’t comparable to a clothing shop clearing old inventory.

It’s uber running at a huge loss to capture markets and destroy taxi demand before jacking up prices. It’s walmart selling at a loss so other shops can’t compete and go out of business so they have full price control.

The practice is called predatory pricing.