BGP lets every Autonomous System pick the cheapest route for itself — no global coordinator. When a new peering link opens between two networks, every AS independently reroutes through it. The result can be a global latency regression for paths that never used the link. Network engineers sometimes deliberately withdraw "free" peering links to restore balance — removing capacity to improve performance. Classic Braess.

Current doesn't get routed — it follows Kirchhoff's laws, splitting across paths according to resistance. This is mathematically identical to selfish routing: each electron takes the path of least resistance independently. Adding a new transmission line between two nodes can shift load distribution and overload existing lines. The European interconnected grid has observed this directly — new capacity causing unexpected congestion elsewhere.

OpenAI cuts token prices 80%. Anthropic does the same. Everyone expects cloud bills to drop.

They go up. Because now it's cheap enough to stuff entire codebases into context, chain five agents together, re-run evals on every commit. The cheaper the resource, the more liberally you use it — so total consumption rises. Jevons Paradox: efficiency gains don't reduce usage, they expand what you think is worth doing. Same story as Braess — the "free" path changes behavior in ways that erase the original benefit.