Imagine an AI future where being banned means you are now economically useless

Commenters treated the premise less as distant AI speculation than as the next escalation of a dependency already built into cloud accounts, phones, banking, and online identity. Their core fear is not merely losing access to a chatbot: an opaque platform decision could cut someone off from the tools, reputation, communications, and services required to earn a living, with no meaningful appeal. A reported case of a family reportedly losing broad Google access after a teenager’s Gemini use gave that worry a concrete shape. The practical split was over whether AI changes the equation. Some argued that local models, self-owned compute, and enterprise accounts leave real escape routes; a capable model running on personal hardware cannot simply revoke its owner. Others replied that those routes are weak if cloud services remain essential for current information, businesses rely on vendor-controlled accounts, or hardware makers eventually restrict which models can run. Several readers also stressed that AI is only frightening here because society is already making digital access effectively mandatory. The thread repeatedly contrasted durable, owner-controlled tools with subscription-based AI services whose rules can change overnight, and framed internet and AI access as approaching the status of infrastructure that needs due-process protections.