The AI companies are competing for market share at present, but it isn't very surprising to see prices for the top models ramp up as they become more complex and use more compute resources. But there's a long trail of older, lesser models still available and some of them are pretty good. My suspicion is that casual users can do just fine with relatively inexpensive mid-or-low-tier models.
I use AI most every day for technical work (to great benefit, I'm often amazed). A couple of months ago the vendors started rationing the token consumption as they reach the limits of their existing compute infrastructure. Now I have to adjust the models I use based on what I'm trying to accomplish at the moment in order to economize. The hard stuff goes to models that are very good but at least a generation behind the very expensive cutting edge. Things that are more mundane can be allocated to older and cheaper models. Sometimes they struggle with a task and I have to bump up to something better. Yesterday I used up my daily token quota after a few hours of very productive work, a bummer but its understandable.