You’ve read a dozen of these lists by now, and they all blur together. Same five apps, same vague “has a free tier,” same copy-pasted paragraph about how AI companionship is “on the rise.” None of them tell you what anything actually costs, which ones will let you get weird, and which ones are quietly dead.
So I did the boring part. I spent the better part of a month living with these apps – texting them on the bus, calling them at 2 a.m., building characters I’m not proud of, and watching my credit card statements like a hawk.View Post









