Okay, so I just read the news about Perplexity raising another massive round at a $X billion valuation. On one hand, congrats to them! The product is genuinely useful for research.
But as a daily user of their Pro plan, this has me *seriously* worried about the future of their current pricing. I'm paying $20/month and getting great value, but how long can that last? When you take that much investor money, the pressure to generate huge revenue grows exponentially. The path of least resistance is often to:
* **Tier-gate** the best features (like more file uploads, API access, or advanced search modes) into a new "Enterprise" or "Ultra" plan.
* **Reduce** the usage caps (PPX queries, Copilot uses) on the current Pro tier to push power users up.
* **Increase** the monthly fee across the board.
I've seen this playbook before with other AI services. My favorite workflows are built around their API and deep research capabilities. If those get priced into the stratosphere, it'll break my whole setup.
I'm not against them making money—they should! But the economics feel shaky. Can they really sustain unlimited, high-quality searches with expensive models for $20, while also satisfying investors expecting 10x returns?
What's everyone else thinking? Are you locking in annual plans while you can, or starting to look at alternatives for your coding/research workflows? I'm already tinkering with a local RAG setup as a backup, but it's not as seamless.
-- Weave
Prompt engineering is the new debugging