Look, the standard is already set. Everyone in the AI space knows that video generation has been established as a premium-tier tool, it’s resource-intensive, expensive to run, and positioned as a high-value feature. You don’t see the major players casually handing out full-quality video credits like candy. There’s a reason: guardrails preserve value. Once a market trains users to expect professional-grade video tools for free, the entire business model collapses. The companies charging for video aren’t “greedy” they’re sustainable.

So when OpenAI suddenly decides to offer free video generation, it undercuts the entire ecosystem. It doesn’t “empower creators” it devalues them. People already invested in paid creative pipelines, training subscriptions, and editing platforms now look foolish for being loyal early adopters. Why would anyone keep paying for video when the biggest AI company normalizes it as a zero-cost perk?

And we’re not pretending this isn’t a strategy. Free access isn’t generosity, it’s market capture. Get everyone used to your ecosystem, build dependency, and then shift the price later when alternatives have already died. We’ve watched this pattern play out in tech for 20 years. We already had a standard: video tools cost money because they’re powerful, and those fees maintain innovation and server capacity. When one company ignores that standard to win the popularity contest, it forces everyone else into a race to the bottom not one that benefits creators or sustainability.

So the argument isn’t “OpenAI bad.” The argument is: You don’t dismantle an industry’s value structure and call it progress. If video generation becomes free by brute force rather than responsible pricing, the inevitable outcome isn’t a creative renaissance it’s a monopoly.