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The skeptical assumption is they need to pay for the AI bills, not that the AI use is actually providing the promises CEOs are making.

ihsw 6mo ago
It is May 2026, there is no difference between AI and non-AI bills. Most (if not all) major enterprises in the US have gone through at least one round of org-wide subscription renewals (eg: Atlassian product packs, Microsoft product packs, etc) where 1) price increases were mandatory, 2) AI features could not be opted out of, and 3) AI feature usage was strongly encouraged from C-suite to client-facing biz staff to telephone agent support staff. I repeat, we are passed the point where AI bills and non-AI bills can be differentiated. We are all paying for these features driven by tokens whether we like it or not, whether the cost-benefit analysis makes sense, and whether they are even being used. And we are all passing the costs onto everyone lower on the totem pole, from insurance groups to bank groups to national grocery chains to consultant conglomerates to minimum wage front-line staff to below-minimum-wage gig workers. And this is why there are layoffs, every price increase from the top down causes further price increases to cascade down.
ceejayoz 6mo ago
The reasonable assumption is they believe a recession is coming.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- 2ndorderthought 6mo ago
  *a recession did infact come*
  - stringfood 6mo ago
    I've been told that a recession is coming since 2009, when I started investing - there has never been one since then despite all the dire predictions - therefore, my investments are safe
    - coliveira 6mo ago
      The government is very decided on not letting one happen, or hiding any minor recession. They will throw money at the problem as long as they can.
      - fauchletenerum 6mo ago
        Have to protect boomers retirement accounts at the cost of future generations
        coliveira 6mo ago
        They don't care about boomers, it is the wealth of billionaires that they care about.
    - anon7725 6mo ago
      > there has never been one since then There was one in 2020, granted it was the shortest on record.
    - Polizeiposaune 6mo ago
      As the saying goes, "Macroeconomists have successfully predicted nine of the last five recessions."
    - didibus 6mo ago
      If you had started investing 1 year earlier though?
      - andsoitis 6mo ago
        As long as you didn’t sell, and in fact bought more on the way down, you did well. Of course, not everyone’s time horizon works the timing (you might need the money and so sell at a low point), but generally, being in the market pays off.
        didibus 6mo ago
  - thrownthatway 6mo ago
    Why is this text not rendered as expected.
    - FartyMcFarter 6mo ago
      If you type 2 asterisks it's rendered as one, it's an escape character mechanism: This text has one asterisk on each side *This one has two on each side*
      - thrownthatway 6mo ago
        Obvious now https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
tasoeur 6mo ago
Honestly not a bad theory. There’s definitely a huge disparity between actual productivity gained by using agentic coding done somewhat properly… and a non-stop wave of vibe coded work causing outages and churn. Pre-Covid hiring coupled with the high enterprise pricing for AI plans, it would make sense.
morpheos137 6mo ago
infrastructure changes slowly. once its built its not clear what you are paying 1111 people for.
user34283 6mo ago
If you listen to people on HN you could think AI is not increasing productivity or is even having a net negative effect. I think the reality is different. In this thread I saw the resume of an engineer affected by this Cloudflare layoff. In the resume he claimed that adopting opencode in his workflow, he shipped an integration in half the time it took peers without AI assistance for similar projects.
- chasd00 6mo ago
  I’m sitting in an airport after spending a week with a client. They’ve killed off one of their enterprise saas subscriptions with an internal ai assisted effort and are looking to kill more. Granted, they are extremely competent but software isn’t their business. There may be something to the saaspocolypse.
  - matwood 6mo ago
    I've seen non-tech people building internal tooling that engineering just never had time to get to. Small/lean companies are leveling up with AI, and they aren't carrying the salary overhead of the big companies. The big companies are going to have to get that much more productive in order to compete and/or they are going to have to cut staff.
- imiric 6mo ago
  Shipping is just a milestone. We all know that "AI" can produce code much faster than any human. Productivity should be measured over time and take into account the cost of maintenance, reliability, amount of issues, etc.

ihsw 6mo ago

It is May 2026, there is no difference between AI and non-AI bills. Most (if not all) major enterprises in the US have gone through at least one round of org-wide subscription renewals (eg: Atlassian product packs, Microsoft product packs, etc) where 1) price increases were mandatory, 2) AI features could not be opted out of, and 3) AI feature usage was strongly encouraged from C-suite to client-facing biz staff to telephone agent support staff. I repeat, we are passed the point where AI bills and non-AI bills can be differentiated. We are all paying for these features driven by tokens whether we like it or not, whether the cost-benefit analysis makes sense, and whether they are even being used. And we are all passing the costs onto everyone lower on the totem pole, from insurance groups to bank groups to national grocery chains to consultant conglomerates to minimum wage front-line staff to below-minimum-wage gig workers. And this is why there are layoffs, every price increase from the top down causes further price increases to cascade down.

ceejayoz 6mo ago

The reasonable assumption is they believe a recession is coming.

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
2ndorderthought 6mo ago
*a recession did infact come*
- stringfood 6mo ago
  I've been told that a recession is coming since 2009, when I started investing - there has never been one since then despite all the dire predictions - therefore, my investments are safe
  - coliveira 6mo ago
    The government is very decided on not letting one happen, or hiding any minor recession. They will throw money at the problem as long as they can.
    - fauchletenerum 6mo ago
      Have to protect boomers retirement accounts at the cost of future generations
      - coliveira 6mo ago
        They don't care about boomers, it is the wealth of billionaires that they care about.
  - anon7725 6mo ago
    > there has never been one since then There was one in 2020, granted it was the shortest on record.
  - Polizeiposaune 6mo ago
    As the saying goes, "Macroeconomists have successfully predicted nine of the last five recessions."
  - didibus 6mo ago
    If you had started investing 1 year earlier though?
    - andsoitis 6mo ago
      As long as you didn’t sell, and in fact bought more on the way down, you did well. Of course, not everyone’s time horizon works the timing (you might need the money and so sell at a low point), but generally, being in the market pays off.
      - didibus 6mo ago
- thrownthatway 6mo ago
  Why is this text not rendered as expected.
  - FartyMcFarter 6mo ago
    If you type 2 asterisks it's rendered as one, it's an escape character mechanism: This text has one asterisk on each side *This one has two on each side*
    - thrownthatway 6mo ago
      Obvious now https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]

tasoeur 6mo ago

Honestly not a bad theory. There’s definitely a huge disparity between actual productivity gained by using agentic coding done somewhat properly… and a non-stop wave of vibe coded work causing outages and churn. Pre-Covid hiring coupled with the high enterprise pricing for AI plans, it would make sense.

morpheos137 6mo ago

infrastructure changes slowly. once its built its not clear what you are paying 1111 people for.

user34283 6mo ago

If you listen to people on HN you could think AI is not increasing productivity or is even having a net negative effect. I think the reality is different. In this thread I saw the resume of an engineer affected by this Cloudflare layoff. In the resume he claimed that adopting opencode in his workflow, he shipped an integration in half the time it took peers without AI assistance for similar projects.

chasd00 6mo ago
I’m sitting in an airport after spending a week with a client. They’ve killed off one of their enterprise saas subscriptions with an internal ai assisted effort and are looking to kill more. Granted, they are extremely competent but software isn’t their business. There may be something to the saaspocolypse.
- matwood 6mo ago
  I've seen non-tech people building internal tooling that engineering just never had time to get to. Small/lean companies are leveling up with AI, and they aren't carrying the salary overhead of the big companies. The big companies are going to have to get that much more productive in order to compete and/or they are going to have to cut staff.
imiric 6mo ago
Shipping is just a milestone. We all know that "AI" can produce code much faster than any human. Productivity should be measured over time and take into account the cost of maintenance, reliability, amount of issues, etc.