What Adobe v ArtCraft teaches us

What happened

The writer says the big AI labs pitched a simple idea: build an AI software engineer, sell it to companies, and stop paying human engineers. But the AI tools also let almost anyone copy hard software. A hobbyist can now build a free Photoshop-style app over a weekend. This takes money away from the software companies, and the free copy earns nothing.

The toll booth idea

The writer compares old software companies to a toll booth. Software was hard and expensive to build, so few people could compete. Companies like Adobe collected monthly fees from users. Those fees paid engineers and shareholders. The AI plan was to replace those engineers, but the same AI can also make the software easy to copy.

Key numbers

• A $20 monthly AI plan is far cheaper than the computing power heavy users may use.
• A $200 premium plan is about $2,400 a year.
• Amazon, Alphabet and Meta planned roughly half a trillion dollars of spending in 2026, much of it on AI data centers.
• Adobe's subscription in the example costs $60.

Why it matters

The article suggests that AI could hurt the companies that would buy AI most. If paid software becomes cheap to copy, the companies that once paid for AI may have less money. Low prices may also be a costly way to win customers, since the AI labs may lose money on heavy users. This is an opinion, so readers should check the claims.

What to watch

• Whether AI labs raise prices for heavy users.
• How many free AI-made copies of paid software appear.
• Whether software companies find new ways to earn money.
• How much AI companies keep spending on data centers.