The cost is supposed to go down as LLMs become more efficient and hardware efficiency goes up with time.
Still the value gets worse for these cloud models all I have to do if I'm using say VScode is install a different extension and configure a few settings and bob's your uncle I'm using a different AI. What benefit exactly do companies get from blowing hundreds of dollars subsidising my usage again? Where's the moat? Where's the lock-in?
Even when the switching cost is lower than what you describe, people tend to keep using the product they had gotten used to.