Open and closed models are on different exponentials
Closed AI models will keep commanding premium margins as coding agents prove users pay more for top intelligence.
“I would pay $2000/month for the tools today, especially knowing they’ll get much better.”— Nathan Lambert
Nathan Lambert argues open and closed AI models are diverging onto different trajectories, with closed labs like Anthropic and OpenAI sustaining large margins because coding agents are the first market proving users will pay a premium for frontier intelligence. He predicts labs will increasingly protect their best models from APIs to guard token supply and prevent distillation. This matters because it frames the central economic question shaping the future balance of power between open and closed AI ecosystems.