The Token Burn Economy: Why AI Usage Limits Are Really Workflow Limits

Every few weeks a new thread surfaces on Reddit and Hacker News: someone has hit their Claude or ChatGPT usage cap by lunchtime and they are, understandably, annoyed. The replies fall into two camps. One blames the lab — the limits are too tight, the pricing is greedy, the model is being deliberately throttled. The other camp, smaller and quieter, says something more interesting: you're not hitting a usage limit. You're hitting a workflow limit.