Freedom | Excel Boss

Sure thing. A lot of these AI platforms require enormous amounts of tokens and carefully refined prompts to build, generate, or execute the ideas creatives have in mind. And those tokens are far from affordable for the average creative; especially given our economic realities. Between the naira-to-dollar exchange rate, expensive subscriptions, and the sheer number of tokens required to generate designs, iterate on concepts, or even edit basic videos; using these tools consistently is a serious financial commitment. Now, the few who can afford to go all in often spend between hundreds to thousands of dollars exploring possibilities, refining outputs, and making countless iterations before arriving at their desired result. Yet, when they eventually post that: “I used AI to make this design. Y’all are sleeping on AI fr…” the context behind that final output is almost always missing: and that omission matters. Because, it creates the impression that the average designer, illustrator, or video editor back home has the same access to these tools, the same purchasing power, and the same freedom to experiment until they get the result they want. Which is not entirely true. I didn’t want to plug this in, but I think I need to; we also have to consider the reality of our creative ecosystem: because a significant number of Nigerian designers either cannot afford legitimate software subscriptions or simply aren’t accustomed to paying for software. That’s part of why cracked software remains so prevalent. Now, we’re introducing another layer of expensive tools and expecting everyone to keep up. It’s concerning if a designer cannot pay 16K for Photoshop; that they obvious use for the next 30 days; but will rather pay 30K for Claude that they’d exhaust in less than 3 hours. The money one would use in “using AI” can actually be used to hire a talent to get the job done, if we’re being honest. So, my argument exactly is this: the conversation around AI in design needs more context and less dismissiveness, especially in the Nigerian ecosystem. Because access matters. Purchasing power matters. The cost of experimentation matters. We’re not fighting AI. We’re simply asking that the conversation acknowledges the realities of the creatives expected to adopt it. Because at the end of the day, a designer should design.