These users — much like the users of effectively every subsidized AI subscription — never really knew how much anything they did cost, because Microsoft intentionally hid the actual cost of prompts and allowed users to spend obscene amounts as a way of boosting growth for GitHub Copilot.

This problem is industry-wide.

Every single user of every single AI subscription service is having their tokens subsidized and the actual cost of AI obfuscated. As a result, every frothy, fluffy hype-piece about Claude Code or AI in general is a kalopsia — the belief that something is more beautiful than it really is.

AI Doesn’t Have ROI

This. This is what I worry about on behalf of nonprofits and the systems the may be setting up on these subsidized (and for them further discounted) accounts.