Intelligence is cheap. Brains are not.

Every year the tools get cheaper and more capable. The MSP industry has spent a decade pretending that was somebody else’s problem. It is a repricing of the whole labor model.

The software keeps getting easier. The configuration UIs keep getting friendlier. AI keeps absorbing more of the rote work. The floor (what it costs to do “tech management”) keeps dropping, and the labor that sits on top of that floor keeps getting cheaper with it. The race-to-the-bottom labor model is not a strategic choice anyone made. It is the gravity the whole category is falling into.

What stays expensive is judgment. The ability to look at a small business and know which of the seventeen things they could be doing is the one that will actually move their numbers. The ability to sit across from an owner and translate “we feel disorganized” into a system. The willingness to do real work for a business instead of reselling someone else’s tool to a business.

That is brains. AI makes brains more valuable, not less. If the floor drops to zero, the only thing left to charge for is what sits on top.

The MSP identity was built when the tools were the scarce thing. The tools are not scarce anymore. The person who knows what to do with them is.

This is why I will not call it an MSP anymore.