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# AI Companies Face Token Economics Reckoning
- URL: https://adjacent.media/signals/ai-companies-face-token-economics-reckoning/
- Published: 2026-06-03T23:05:04.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-03T23:05:04.000Z
- Description: The analogy to gym memberships reveals a structural problem: AI vendors have pursued user acquisition through bundled pricing while usage patterns remain unpredictable.
- Author: Jonathan Greene
- Tags: #signal, theme-commerce, pricing models, token economics, subscription mechanics

Source: [Azeem Azhar, Exponential View](https://open.substack.com/pub/exponentialview/p/does-pricing-shrink-or-expand-markets)

The analogy to gym memberships reveals a structural problem: AI vendors have pursued user acquisition through bundled pricing while usage patterns remain unpredictable. As token economics mature, vendors will consolidate around who can sustain low-frequency users via subscription and who must shift to pay-per-use models. That fragmentation will force enterprise buyers to manage multiple vendor relationships instead of unified platforms.