Lost Projects, Sky-High Bills: This Week’s AI Reality Check

June 04, 2025

This week, the AI no-code community's frustration reached a boiling point as the gap between marketing promises and actual experiences widened into a chasm.

From lost projects to deceptive pricing tactics, users are discovering that the AI revolution comes with fine print that nobody bothered to mention.

Here's what's happening — and what you can do about it:

💔 Project Loss Due to Dishonesty When Platforms Pull the Rug

The most devastating stories this week came from users who lost entire projects due to sudden platform changes or shutdowns.

One OpenAI user shared their painful experience:

"My Plus subscription ran out and all my projects disappeared, then OpenAI starts Codex-1 as a parallel something. This is what I was working on but now it's gone." — Facebook Group Post

This pattern of dishonesty isn't isolated:

"The truth about Builder.ai is more nuanced than the fraud narrative suggests: it was a company with genuine AI innovation that struggled with execution." — LinkedIn

✅ Action:

  • Export your work regularly to local storage — never trust cloud-only solutions

  • Read the fine print about what happens to your projects if you downgrade or cancel

  • Maintain a project journal documenting key decisions and code snippets outside the platform

🤯 The Information Overload Crisis

The flood of new AI tools is creating decision paralysis and overwhelming even experienced developers.

As one frustrated developer put it:

"Wake up. Check phone. Seventeen new AI tools launched overnight. Feel inadequate. Download three. Forget what they do. Repeat until existential crisis." — Medium

The tech sales community is feeling it too:

"Not trying to be dramatic… but tech sales feels like it's choking on its own tools. Everyone's using sequences. Everyone's using AI." — Reddit

✅ Action:

  • Implement a personal "one in, one out" policy for AI tools

  • Schedule dedicated "evaluation days" rather than constantly trying new tools

  • Join curated communities where others filter the noise for you

  • Create a decision framework for evaluating new tools against your specific needs

💸 Bait-and-Switch Tactics Exposed

The AI industry's pricing models are increasingly revealing themselves as classic bait-and-switch operations.

Vercel's v0 users were particularly vocal this week:

"Users felt tricked ('bait-and-switch'); Massive, sudden increases in cost (10x–100x in some cases); Anxiety about unpredictable monthly bills." — Medium

Industry analysts are predicting more of the same:

"If an AI tool genuinely replaces multiple full-time employees, $10/month won't remain the norm. Investors need returns, and markets correct based on value not hype." — Medium

✅ Action:

  • Calculate your "exit cost" before committing to any AI platform

  • Set up usage alerts and hard spending caps on all AI services

  • Diversify your tool stack to avoid single-vendor lock-in

  • Document all pricing promises and marketing claims for future reference

⚠️ Cursor & Codex: The Performance Reality Check

Users are increasingly vocal about the gap between marketing claims and actual performance of popular AI coding tools.

One developer comparing multiple tools noted:

"Downsides: Performance, sometimes Cursor just gets laggy during local... This week I tested Claude Code in API mode and was surprised by the results." — Reddit

Professional developers are expressing frustration with the workflow disruptions:

"The engineers who spent the last three months ping-ponging between Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, etc. can have their experience distilled into like a week of training." — Hacker News

✅ Action:

  • Maintain a local backup workflow that doesn't depend on AI tools

  • Track your actual productivity with and without AI assistance

  • Use AI tools for specific tasks rather than end-to-end development

  • Report performance issues directly to vendors with specific examples

🔧 Quick Fixes, Warnings, & Watchouts

Fix this now: If you're using OpenAI's tools for project storage, export everything immediately. Multiple users reported losing work after subscription changes or expirations.

Watch out for this: "Tool addiction" — when you spend more time testing and configuring AI tools than actually building your product. Set a timer for tool exploration.

Avoid this combo: Free tier + production dependency + no backup plan = The Disappearing Project Disaster™. Not recommended for business continuity.

📬 What You Can Do Right Now

 ✅ Export all your projects from cloud-based AI tools to local storage today.

❌ Don't commit to annual subscriptions for AI tools that haven't proven their value for at least 3 months.

📤 Forward this email to anyone who's feeling gaslit by AI marketing promises.

Until next week, remember that the most reliable tool in your arsenal is still your own judgment. — AI No-Code Rescue