Not just AI. Every subscription in general can be a time bomb. You grow more dependent on it, and the provider can disappear or take it away at any moment.
1. Sell you X seats, expecting that internal network effects will get you to 3X soon enough.
2. Sell you X seats, noting that as soon you reach 2X seats, you need to move to the Enterprise plan, under which largely the same feature set plus a couple of gated SCIM controls will cost twice as much.
3. Sell you X seats for their core product, then announce that features B and C are actually an additional SKU that requires additional per-seat subscriptions that double the cost.
4. Sell you X seats for their core product, then immediately announce that you’re on a “legacy plan”, but they’re happy to move you now to their updated offering, which is the same product but now structured to cost twice as much.