We were their paying customers. Now we're getting laid off and they're panicking.
I got laid off in February. Staff engineer, 11 years, wife and 4 kids. You know the drill - most of you are living it too.
Before the layoff I was paying for everything. $200/month for Cursor. $100/month for Claude. Design tools, productivity apps, the whole stack. Didn't even think about it. I was employed, the tools helped me work, the money came in and went out.
Now I'm watching every dollar. And this week I noticed something that hit different.
I went to cancel Cursor. $200 a month is a lot when you don't know when your next paycheck is coming. Before I could even confirm the cancellation, they threw a 50% off screen in my face. Instantly. No survey, no "we're sorry to see you go." Just a desperate discount trying to keep me from leaving.
Same week, Claude started giving me free API calls. I'm on the cheapest plan. Suddenly 100 free calls one day, 100 more the next. No email, no explanation. Just free stuff showing up like they know I'm thinking about cancelling.
Here's the thing. This isn't generosity. This is fear.
Think about who was paying for all these AI tools. Us. Software engineers. The same people getting walked out by the tens of thousands. Oracle just cut 30,000. 90,000+ tech jobs gone in 2026 so far. Every single one of us had subscriptions. Had. Past tense.
We were their revenue. We were the ones keeping the lights on at these AI companies. And now we're sitting at kitchen tables updating resumes and deciding which $20/month subscription to cut next because unemployment doesn't cover what our salaries did.
The math is brutal and nobody at these companies wants to say it out loud:
- Laid-off engineer cancels $200/month coding tool
- Same engineer cancels $20/month AI assistant
- Same engineer cancels $30/month design tool
- Multiply by 90,000 of us
That's not a blip. That's their revenue disappearing because we disappeared.
And here's the irony that keeps me up at night. Some of these same companies - the ones now begging us to stay with 50% off and free credits - their technology was part of the story that justified our layoffs. "AI makes everyone more productive so we don't need as many engineers." Cool. Well the engineers you helped make redundant were paying you $200 a month. And now they're not.
The snake is eating its own tail. And the discounts are the first sign that it noticed.
I'm not writing this to complain about AI tools. I actually love them and I'm still using them to build a side project. I'm writing this because when the companies selling the shovels start discounting the shovels, it means the gold rush is slowing down for everyone. Not just us.
We're all in this together. And apparently, so are they now.
Has anyone else noticed their tools getting suspiciously generous lately? What subscriptions have you cut since your layoff?