Signs the AI bubble is ready to POP

Take a look at the above image. Multiple users are reporting Open AI software is being auto-blocked by Apple and treated like malware.

Of course, this is temporary, likely a signing problem on openAI's side. Or their own vibe tool didn't vibe the signage hard enough.

But it can also be a little, temporary show of strength by Apple. A company famously in a great financial position. Business-wise it's the opposite of OpenAI.

Open AI losses

Apple makes money. OpenAI burns money. Big difference.

Is this a little priming joke for the possible upcoming Apple's push for Local Models on their powerful hardware?

Quite possible. But there is another, more sinister possibility at play here.

Are AI companies playing dirty?

It is however possible, that AI companies tried to circumvent some of Apple's security measures hoping they won't notice.

It's not the first time a ruthless corporations does stuff without user consent. Just recently Google just "added" a local LLM onto your computer without asking you.

Source: PCMag

Or Anthropic apparently charging you MORE tokens if your api calls contain words they don't like. Openclaw for example, even if it's not related to the app itself. Or straight up making up things just to keep the fomo cycle going.

Like the mythos myths of consciousness.

Conscious means higher valued for sure

Yes, frontier model companies are pretty sneaky.

Anthropic also admitted they "read and analyze" all user queries. Which also means, all those smart AI-bros feeding their know-how and client list to optimize the business may be in for a treat down the road.

Once business viable use-cases get parsed, they may just be merged into the chatbots themselves. Someone who optimized their business by 17% will be out of business then. Technically that's a 100% optimization, no more work needed.

But let's be serious. Where is this whole AI bubble going?

We're doomed, or we're not

The experts from Financial Times decided to enlighten us with their prediction of the AI future. You ready?

It will lead to human extinction! Oh no!

But wait… It will also lead to end of scarcity. True age of abundance! Free lunch for everyone!

But… that's not all! It will also possibly have a rather unimpressive effect of slow but steady growth.

Gee… I wish I could've predicted that.

They all send money to each other and the market looks like it makes money

Economy goes round and round

It's hard to say that AI has no value. It does for coding, data analysis, parsing large documents, reformatting things, photo editing and more. There are use-cases for the technology that make total sense. It's pretty great when in hands of people who know what they're doing.

It fails in hands of unskilled people, both in slop-ridden vibe-coded "apps" and forced-AI use across corporations.

But in this case we need to separate the technology from the businesses. As it seems like the businesses can't justify their existence without market manipulation of some kind.

AI is a success?

People still use iPods in 2026. In fact they're making a comeback.

Apple launched the iPod in 2001. By April 2004, it was already outselling the Mac, growing by more than 900% from the previous year.

Three years. About as much, as our current AI thing is going on for.

This is a huge product success

Machinations

Source DarioCPX on X

And then weird things like helping hands to keep the circle going seem to be happening. This all points to the fact that Nvidia really, REALLY needs AI to be profitable.

Is this just one company gaming the market?

Data center cancellations are on the rise

And if they are, if data centers get put on hold, who will they be selling their GPUs to? Is this a sign of things slowly but surely folding down on themselves?

And then to top if off, we have OpenAI struggling to pay for the compute. So less data centers, less money (unless bailout) to pay for GPUs. And Nvidia seems to be helping out a data center company just to keep it going a little longer?

Source: Unusual Whales on X based on WaPo article

These things just keep happening. More financial needs. No profits. No growth. And flailing rapidly with weird ideas like Sora or making an OpenAI phone.

A phone? Really? Why would ANYONE buy an OpenAI phone specifically, instead of just using an iPhone with chat GPT on it? Even if Jony Ive designs that phone, people love their apps. Their blue bubbles. They won't switch.

This randomness in actions from OpenAI especially is worying. I feel like they really don't have a plan other than "ask for more money"

Which reminds me of the classic from Parks and Rec.

Where is the value?

When you think about it, it's pretty interesting. Only 3.5 Million people are paying more than $20 for their AI plans. Yes, me included. That is a tiny fraction of the world's population. The majority still uses no AI, with the second largest group using the free chatbot versions.

Three years in it seems like the tech people see the value (and pay), but everyone else doesn't care much to pay for LLMs.

Maybe AI needs more time to gain proper adoption. But it doesn't seem to be getting it. More people are just fine with local models or free LLMs. The numbers are barely moving.

AI stagnation is real

A floating bubble

A bubble is inflating price by pretend demand and promises. Even if AI itself is an actually useful (and pretty great) technology, the AI industry is running on hype trains, fomo cycles and promises of future growth.

It's pretty odd to see serious investors still putting in money into frontier model companies, even when seeing all the red flags around. The unsustainability, circular financing, relatively low adoption and, what's even worse less interest.

Young people especially are shunning AI and outright rejecting it. So who is the OFFER of ai companies really for?

A couple Million tech bros? A couple of boomer tech CEO's who want to be hip and optimize their businesses? Here's two recent cases. Coinbase restructured into AI-first company. Bragged in an open-letter that non-technical people are pushing production code. And literally the next day…

Coinbase 7 hour outage after their recent layoffs

It went down for 7 hours, citing an air conditioning system malfunction in a data center. Maybe the non-tech person production code had something to do with that.

Or maybe it's just karma.

Then Cloudflare announced their AI era with a layoff of over 1100 people. More productivity, less overhead, more profit… But the market didn't seem to think so and the stock went almost 24% down in a very short time.

What it all means?

I know I showered you with data, articles, headlines Today. But I wanted to illustrate how weird this all feels.

A pretty good (revolutionary even) product, that most people don't want. A handful of early adopters (me included) heavily invested, but everyone else seems not to care.

The economic dynamics of this market are definitely not those of a massive success. They're more like doing anything to not make the house of cards completely fall apart.

Because when it does, the investors may stop sending in $ Billions.

And then it's over.

Massive, expensive data centers vs a small 12x12cm box?

End of AI? No. LLMs will be there, running silently on a Mac Mini and being used where they're actually useful.

We may be better off without those hype and fomo cycles. We'll just use AI like we should. As a tool to make us truly more productive.

And we can finally start talking about other things! Can't wait!