Economist: OpenAI's Non-Linear Pricing Pushes Users Into Multiple Accounts
joshgans · x · 2026-10-28
Economist Joshua Gans cites Jason Furman's complaint that three of his five Claude accounts maxed out while building his project Econvitals.
Gans argues this multi-account behavior exposes a pricing problem for AI vendors like OpenAI: users are deliberately choosing a worse AI workflow to save money, and non-linear pricing violates a fundamental pricing requirement. Analogizing to rising block tariffs, he argues vendors must deliver enough single-account value that users have no incentive to split across accounts.
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