Hedging with Open Source: Models, Data, and Agentry

The primary risk to the agentic future is the walled garden. We are seeing a predictable cycle: a tool launches with clever cost-management tricks—like leveraging OAuth session tokens instead of expensive API keys to keep pricing predictable. But as soon as these products scale, the gatekeepers consolidate. They lock down OAuth, force users into their own AI ecosystems, and shift the burden to high-margin API monetization.

The economics of autonomy

To build durable agentic infrastructure, you have to hedge. This is why the "Mac Mini craze" and VPS-hosted open-source models aren't just for hobbyists—they are a fundamental cost-management strategy. Not every agent task requires a high-frontier model. Low cognitive reasoning tasks—scanning for price changes, monitoring logs, basic data cleaning—should be offloaded to local or self-hosted OS models. It's the only way to manage the token tax at scale.

Enriched data vs. proprietary brokers

It's the same story with data. Proprietary data brokers have had a good run, but their walls are crumbling. The real value for modern businesses and personal agents lies in the orchestration of open-source data sets. By scraping, enriching, and connecting these sets, we can build a queryable intelligence layer that doesn't rely on expensive, gated subscriptions. We're returning to a GDPR-style value exchange: the right to access agentry functions in exchange for contributing to the data commons.

Reactive security and the scraping game

The reality is that data is breachable and leaked. The old strategy of build-a-fortress is failing. The new game is agent-based reactive security—systems that can scrape everything, identify breaches or anomalies in real time, and adjust the workflow. We don't just "store" data anymore; we enrich it and make it available for agentic usage. If you aren't building a system to scrape and restructure the world’s open information, you are leaving your agent’s memory bank empty.

Nurturing the commons

The industry must continue to nurture and support open-source releases to prevent a total monopoly on intelligence. I am focused on building systems that bridge the gap between these OS models and actual utility. This is the core of Agentic Infrastructure: it should be open, scalable, and resilient to the gatekeeping of the incumbents.