¡That's Right! the current recent era of "free" or incredibly cheap high-quality artificial intelligence was a short temporary phase, often referred to by analysts as the "AI honeymoon" or a "subsidy bubble" that obviously couldn't last forever. ¿What were you thinking?

As of mid-2026, the industry is shifting from an user-acquisition phase funded by venture capital toward monetization, as firms face pressure to show profits once and for all since running AI is a thing incredibly expensive. One query can use 100x more power than a standard Google search. Data centers are consuming immense amounts of electricity, with some estimates suggesting they could consume 20% of global electricity by 2030.

Previously, AI firms scraped the internet for free. Now, publishers are demanding payment for their content. Companies are signing multi-billion dollar licensing deals with news publishers and stock image sites which increases exponentially the cost of training models.

And as VC subsidies have been drying up, the AI companies which have been burning through cash just to catch and build user habits. Now, as funding decreases, those costs must be passed on to the ~~user~~ addict asap. Given that the energy consumption and hardware needed for AI, such as Nvidia chips, is both scarce and expensive, which is creating a bottleneck that keeps prices high and evidently you'll have to pay for it.

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I don't know about you, but I've noticed for quite some time now that Google, at least, has been making annoying modifications and changes to its free platforms to make things more bothersome and difficult for you. For you the off guard and unprepared addicted user.

For example, I've noticed that for quite some time now the simply fact of using the Google Search engine, every now and then you often get an annoying captcha supposedly to verify that you're not a bot. As has also been happening in some of its other "free" applications and services. Don't they know, or didn't they know, that we're not bots?

Oh! And let's not even talk about YouTube. For several months now, you haven't been able to watch any videos on YouTube unless you've logged in beforehand and keep your session open the whole time online. Has this happened to you too, or is it just me?

Because I'm starting to get the rare smell that many of these "free" Google apps and services will soon be tokenized and put under subscription mechanisms behind a paywall or something regardless how wealthy they are. Don't you smell the same bad effluvium too?

Yeah, for this post I will only use Google as an example because it is the "free" drug we are most addicted to and most used to for long time. Its search engine, its email services, Google Drive, Google translator... ¡Holy Cow! "Google translator" Sheesh! what kind of hell that will turn out to be in the lives of my fellow countrymen in Hive? ¿Huh?

And well, I'm only talking about Google because it's also the free digital drug that I consume and have consumed the most so far. But just take a look at all the hallucinogen and stupefying services that the drug dealer above has embroidered on his shirt. ¿Haven't you become addicted to them too? Yeah, I forgot Amazon. But I suppose you get the picture.

Just like is shown in the first image that starts this post, all these gigantic and opulent Silicon Valley companies nowadays act like a "jíbaro" street drug dealer/pusher giving you a free taste of their latest hallucinogen of turn to hook you up first and then, in a short time, have you by the balls, fleecing you of every penny you have once they have made you addicted. Whether by subscription models, Freemium & Premium models, Per-Use strategies and any other new shenanigan they can think of.

The message is clear and has been clear for a long time. By 2030 you will own nothing and you will be happy. Although at the rate we're going, it's not surprising that they might brought forward that "slogan" by a few years. They are the ones who create, produce, and distribute the drug, and you are already just the poor addicted consumer who can no longer function without it.

Yeah, these greedy digital traffickers learned well the lesson. They understood something that, in the early years of the internet, the established print media didn’t until it was almost too late: you can’t simply give away something for free that stood as the economic foundation of your businesses for years and decades.

When the Internet arrived, it was regarded as a totally open and ad-free place. Eventually, ads appeared along with the content of almost every media brand on the planet. No one charged a dime because ad views more than made up for lost subscription revenue. Until it didn’t. Display ads became white noise and the media companies watched profits plummet. Eventually, brands started erecting paywalls and found other forms of revenue like e-commerce and Freemium, Premium and Per-Use business models.

And of course, AI had the briefest honeymoon of being free for-all, but that’s changing quickly, and the future of AI access is clearly pay-to-play no matter how much you kick and scream. So once they've got you hooked to their numbing free crack, it's best if you get used to the fact that you won't own anything and you'll be happy forever.