Thing is, I already am...

The price did grow several times in size, but even in the 4 to 5 digit price range, you or smaller companies can have a pretty competitive performing open source model as the frontier models from earlier this year and they are keeping pace.

Obviously I'd like the speculation bubble to end and the DRAM and GPU cartels broken up, as it's late-stage capitalism where the existing regulations being unenforced on big tech because the regulators are in on it that's the problem, not so much the AI tech itself. (Don't get me wrong, the tech has bad sides to it too like stealing artwork, data centre environmental impact and whatnot, but just speaking to the cause of the component greedflation).

Yes it's disgustingly expensive. I spent a whole lot of money on an old used GPU and it felt bad, but it didn't feel dirty like paying for Claude would. And then a couple of weeks later the used prices for this GPU had risen by about 15%.

(I only use Claude at work when someone else is paying. And they're about to make me redundant because Claude is cheaper than me.)