[scottyah]

But "some assholes" is an extremely large, growing group of people. Do you have any idea how much more productive small business owners are now? It's an insane boost for people who didn't want to spend their time on things that are extremely critical for business but not the focus of the business.

[hn_acc1]

And people loved "free next day delivery" from Amazon, when it started. It's not quite the same level of service anymore, and membership has gone up in price.

Would these businesses pay 2x? 5x? 10x? What is their breaking point? I'm sure xAI/OpenAI/whoever will find it and charge 0.9x that (eventually). Just look at telecoms / internet access and their rubbish "network congestion" claims to keep raising prices.

[scottyah]

I still get a lot of free next day, and now sometimes even same day, delivery for amazon. I doubt the membership prices has even matched inflation, but it is certainly well worth it. I can't see any governmental or volunteer organization that would produce even slightly comparable results with the same budget.