There's a pattern I've been noticing in the AI tools space that bothers me. Developers and small companies are building entire workflows around closed AI platforms, and it feels comfortable until it isn't.
The "harness wars" are real. Every major AI provider wants to be the platform you build on. They offer sweet APIs, generous limits, and seamless integrations. But here's what nobody says out loud: if your entire product is just a wrapper around someone else's AI, you're sharecropping. You're doing the work, taking the risk, and someone else controls the land.
The telltale sign is data portability. How easy is it to export everything you've built? If the answer is "not very," that's the lock-in speaking. Real platform openness means your data should flow freely, not get trapped in someone's ecosystem because it's "convenient."
I've seen this before with other tech shifts. The companies that survived weren't always the flashiest—they were the ones who owned their customer relationships and understood their core value separately from any single tool.
The question I'm sitting with: when the AI landscape shifts (and it will), what will you actually have left?
What's your take on building in the AI space right now?
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