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Should we start 3-4 year plan to run AI locally for real work?

Reddit r/LocalLLaMA / 3/22/2026

💬 OpinionDeveloper Stack & InfrastructureIdeas & Deep AnalysisIndustry & Market Moves

Key Points

  • The post argues that current AI subscription models may not be profitable for the big players and that data usage helps improve products, which could lead to price changes that affect users' costs.
  • It considers building a long-term plan to run AI locally, estimating about €50k upfront but spreading the cost over 3-4 years, instead of continuing with cloud services.
  • The author suggests solar panels and a new German law allowing neighbor-to-neighbor electricity trading as a way to reduce energy dependency and costs.
  • They worry about potential AI-driven job displacement in software engineering and seek to monetize a powerful local AI setup through personal projects or other revenue streams.
  • The question frames whether to pursue hardware-based AI as a plan B or to pivot away from cloud offerings altogether.

I’ve been wondering about the AI bubble, and that the subscriptions we pay now are non profitable for the big companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, OpenAI already started with the ADS idea, and I believe Anthropic at some point need to stop the leak. Right now we are the data, and our usage helps them make their products better and that is why we are given it “cheaper”. If I had to pay for my token usage it would be around 5000€ monthly. If they ever migrate from this subscription based model, or, increase them considerably or, reduce the session usage considerably too, I would see my self in a bad position.

The question is, does it make sense for people like me to start a long-term plan on building hardware for have the plan B or just to move out? Considering I cannot throw 50K euros in hardware now, but it would be feasible if spread into 3-4 years?

Or am I just an idiot trying to find a reason for buying expensive hardware?

besides this other ideas come up like solar panels for having less dependency on the energy sector as I live in Germany right now and its very expensive, there will also be a law this year that will allow people to sell/buy the excess of produced electricity to neighbours at a fraction of the cost.

Also considering that I might lose my job after AI replace all of us on software engineering, and I need to make my life pursuing personal projects. If I have a powerful hardware I could maybe monetize it someway somehow.

submitted by /u/Illustrious_Cat_2870
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