Demands for tokens exists yes. On one side you have huge demand for the infinitely subsidized tokens so that people can post a "unique" illustration when posting on social media, along with the text itself even.
On the other end we have professionals happy to pay a subscription for heavier use, to build something in the hope to sell it.
I figured I don't believe in value when my dad explained to me his mate fired his team once he realised he could just pay 20 bucks for his Gemini account and run his business. I asked, do you call this value add? He said it must be, since he can produce the same output with no staff.
There is a confusion between profiting from a circumstance and value creation.
You create value if, say, you cure a disease. That it takes you an army of staff or extract maximum profit from it is just a feasibility formula.
That you make the cure more affordable is value creation.
That you cure the same disease but increase your profit doesn't create any value, except to yourself, for a while
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> I figured I don't believe in value
Maybe you don't, but it's fairly obvious that a lot of things are changing and things are moving.
Maybe your dad's mate didn't have to expand on his business, good for him. Other business are expanding because they now can.
Will the positive overweigh the negative? Not necessarily, but to go "it's tulip" is the kind of argument so devoid of nuance that we shouldn't be discussing so on HN.
The overwhelming demand for token would not coming from people wanting a unique illustration - it would be from professional usage. In fact, I'm not even sure who is subsidized. The $20 subscription surely isn't being used fully across all members of that subscription.