The golden era of tech giants might be hitting a wall. For years, these companies perfected a beautiful equation: minimal infrastructure spending paired with astronomical returns. But AI is flipping that script entirely.

What made Big Tech so profitable? Simple—once you build the platform, scaling costs almost nothing. More users meant more revenue without proportional cost increases. That's the magic formula that minted trillion-dollar valuations.

Now? AI demands massive computational power, energy-hungry data centers, and constant model training. We're talking billions in infrastructure before you see a single dollar back. The old playbook doesn't work anymore.

This shift has serious implications beyond traditional tech. In the crypto and Web3 space, we're watching similar dynamics play out with AI-blockchain integration projects. Those promising decentralized AI networks? They're wrestling with the same brutal economics—compute isn't cheap, whether it's centralized or distributed.

Some major players are already feeling the squeeze. Capital expenditure is exploding while profitability timelines stretch further out. The companies that dominated through efficiency might find themselves outmaneuvered by those willing to burn cash building AI infrastructure.

Makes you wonder if we're witnessing a fundamental reshaping of tech economics. The lean-and-mean era could be giving way to something more capital-intensive, more infrastructure-heavy. And whoever controls that infrastructure? They'll likely write the rules for the next decade.