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

[LimyG]

2025 and well after that were/are in some ways like a 2 week free trial of a particular software service.

Just on a much longer time line, and massive scale. A.I. touches just about everything.

We all know the HUGE $ investments in all things A.I. and also the cost of the power to run it.

This is business after all, and no matter how long the "free trial," businesses need to make money.
Nothing is for free.

 

[BadThad]

Through work, I've got a github copilot business account, which I have used for a year or so now to enhance an existing codebase and build new features, no vibe coding b/s.

I managed to burn through 20% allocation in the last 2 days, using Opus to come up with a plan for a fairly simple task, and implementation using Sonnet. With judicious use I was previously able to get through a month easily.

Thing is useless unless our company stumps 10x what they paid a few weeks ago.

The insistence we should all be using AI for as much as possible in the last 12 months is all of a sudden going to get a lot quieter very soon.

This is why Anthropic is listing this year, SpaceX (after Musk shoved xAI into it), and no doubt OpenAI before the end of the year... they've got limited time to try and cash in before the penny drops, and the investors flee.

We have global Copilot AI and all MS systems. I use AI daily, our company is already hitting the "token paywall" because I've been getting "try again later" a lot recently.

The biggest question is, who can afford to keep paying for it as intercompany demands continue to escalate? As I stated above, AI will prove to a top money-suck for companies that can properly leverage it. My perspective it will NOT save money but instead suck it at a rapid pace. The greatest value of AI is as a tool to increase productivity of folks that understand how to wield it's power. But that certainly comes at a cost.

 

[BadThad]

AI is following the same patterns as cloud computing. Lure them in with free services. Start charging for usage. Start charging for everything and make the bills a mess.
One addition with AI is that they will likely enshittify the product as well by putting adds and suggestions in

Man, don't give them ideas! lmfao

 

[Gravitytr1]

They've convinced companies to pay Google rather than human employees, for worse service and more cost.

That's how strong the PR is