I have been thinking about the news that GitHub Copilot is moving to token-based billing. It is a small story, on the face of it. A subscription becomes a meter rather than a licence, and the price of using AI, which has been hidden inside a monthly fee subsidised by enormous quantities of venture capital, is becoming visible.
Where GitHub leads, other vendors will follow; the move is structural rather than transitional, as Ed Zitron has been at pains to point out in this excellent article. The economics have never been in doubt; the marketing effort is evolving as business need turns to addiction; and the bill is now arriving.
What has been turning over in my head is not the price story itself; it is what lies beneath it. For three years we have been told, in roughly equal measure, that AI is a transformative resource and that it is essentially free at point of use. And we have chosen to believe it. We have been encouraged to use it for ever…