Ads on setting paid plans of OpenAI says more about the state of the company itself rather then the ads they put. There is an interview where Sam Altman said OpenAI won't be putting Ads on any of their plans including the free plan unless as a last result. This basically means they will only put ads if they keep losing money from running their large data centers and AI isn't profitable. So ads on the Free plan generally mean we need money while ads on paid plans means are at the worst of the worst and we desperately need funding. Because when you think about it, OpenAI would never put ads even on a Free plan because it will only drive its users to its competitors like Gemini, Claude and so on. Either way this is just my take on the situation.
I must be honest, but I have started doing the same thing to some degree. Now this is for me in particular, I do know coding, but if the task at hand will take like 3 days and Claude can write and debug it in an hour, then I usually just run it by Claude. This is not to say I don't still code, because I still do, depending on the project, but I find myself relying on Claude a lot. I know this is counterintuitive to what you want to hear, but this is my reality. However, I still know a lot of people who still code with out the use of AI. So in my opinion the profession of programming will go down as AI progresses but will never die no matter how AI advances.
At least I don't think scalper's will be a problem with the Steam Machine and I honestly believe someone with the knowledge of building PCs can build something way more powerful.