For me problem with many tools is subscription model, not that I have to pay. You build your workflow around a few subscription tools, then something bad happens. You need to cut expenses. Apart from shitty situation in general, your workflow falls apart and you're unhappy about lowered standard of living, making it more probable to further worsen your life. It simply feels bad.

That works out if you are a freelancer. Otherwise the $20 comes out of your pocket, and the productivity gains go to your employer.

The monetary aspect doesn't apply for many (most?) freelancers either. I work and bill the same amount of time every day regardless of how much I achieved. Brain fog day is worth the same as an uninterrupted flow day.

It does make me more efficient which is something I do care about.

If you're paid by the hour like that, doesn't saving 2 hours per week mean you are getting paid $20 less per week?

It's the opposite. A salaried developer on an agile team commits to a certain amount of work per sprint. If they can get it done in 2 hours less time, that's a net gain for the developer.

If anyone on this site working as a Dev is making 10/hr I question whether they can even navigate to the ChatGPT website by themselves in the first place. At a real number like 50/hr you only need to save 1.2 minutes per working day for it to break even. Which is trivially easy. You could save that by having ChatGPT write your emails for you alone.