> only a company that has gone bananas would do that.

There are plenty of companies that have, indeed, gone bananas.

There was a story on HN last year about a tech writer who lost their lost job and was being replaced by ChatGPT. They argued to their boss "but I'm 10x as good as ChatGPT, you aren't going to get writing nearly as good once I'm gone!" The boss replied "I know you're 10x as good but you're 10,000x as expensive. The company is okay with the drop in quality."