Here in February 2026, I’m collecting AI model subscriptions faster than my mom collected Longaberger baskets. It’s a great time to be a consumer as models leapfrog each other, but at any given moment, the underlying models are not that different.
It’s clear that “AI compute” is a new utility, and it’s going to be a big one. (It might even crowd out “Internet access” as a distinct thing that people pay for (or pay much for), just as happened to “long distance” phone charges.)
Those AI providers want: (a) to sell as many computes as possible, and (b) to lock in users. Having the best model (for the month!) is not sufficient, as the back-end models are relatively fungible.
The real battleground is in end-user apps: humans are notoriously “sticky”. When we’ve figured out how to use an app, are invested in it, and it meets our needs, the alternative has to be dramatically better to switch. (Try teaching a non-technical user how to use a video conferencing tool other than Zoom.)
AI providers want an app ecosystem that’s cheap/free – anything that drives compute usage. They will offer affiliate revenue share models to app developers that drive underlying AI subscriptions, upgrades, and usage.
The AI providers will cherry-pick top apps from that ecosystem and build free versions, which only work with their models. Give away a printer that only works with your ink, and sell the ink.
This is why the current state of the market is so fascinating:
- OpenAI thought it was a model arms race, but is realizing that even if their model is 5% better, that’s not sufficient.
- Anthropic is iterating rapidly on their coding agent and similar apps (e.g. Claude for Excel). They don’t have to have the absolute best model.
- Cursor is incredibly exposed (selling a printer that still requires expensive ink) until it gets acquired by an AI company or cuts a meaningful affiliate deal. After all, Microsoft literally owns VS Code and GitHub.
- Google is saying, “Hold my beer, do you remember what Microsoft did with Internet Explorer?”
Who’s going to be the “Netscape” of this tech wave?