If a task takes you five hours to do without AI and 1 hour with AI charged at 100$, in the without-AI case you're making 500$, in the with-AI case you're making 100$ - price_of_AI, right?
Otherwise your example assumes you're charging someone 5 hours of work when in reality it took you 1 hour and then you spent an additional 4 hours watching TV.
In any case this thinking exercise made me realize that maybe it's more about staying competitive against other peers than about "AI paying for itself". If you're really charging for hours of work, then it is really a competitive advantage against people not using AI.
Assuming an AI-enhanced contractor can do the same amount of work than a non-AI-enhanced contractor in fewer hours, then I'd assume they would get more contracts, because the overall project is cheaper for whoever is hiring them. Does that really lead to you making more money, though? No idea honestly. Probably not? I just can't see how using AI "pays for itself". At best you're making now less money than before, because you're required to pay for the AI subscription if you want to stay competitive.
Paying programmers by the hour always seemed weird for me because of the productivity spikes. I prefer paying by the job or just buying a weekly block that assumes someone works full time on my project.
I would be annoyed with a consultant who billed me for 4 hours when it was 30 minutes of work and an estimated savings from using AI.
What I hate is that I will not pay more than 20-50$ per month for side projects and that gap annoys me.
That's why anyone suggesting AI won't take your jobs is delusional. We will need significantly less developer time.
Maybe I'll program my oven to cook the pizza at a slightly lower temperature, but crisp the living carbon out of it for the final 90 seconds. Just like I'm doing manually now, but less prone to errors because I ignored the pizza while browsing HN and can smell it bur.......
My pizza!
I think there will be more work for developers, but it will be harder to slack off.
Is the argument that by using these AI subscriptions, you have free time that didn't have before and now you work less hours? Or that the extra productivity you get from that AI subscription allows you to charge more per hour? or maybe that you can do more projects simultaneously, and therefore get more $ per day?
Otherwise I don't get how the AI subscription "pays for itself".