Agents stopped reading through Snowflake.
You charged every outside agent a fee per row it reads from Snowflake-governed tables. Agents compare costs on every query, and Iceberg files open anywhere.
The CFO: Row fees are up 120% in a month! The robots pay! Finally, a chart that only goes up!
OMNI: NOT SO FAST! A fee per row? Then I'll read the Parquet files directly. They're in her bucket, and they don't invoice.
By summer, agents read the Iceberg tables with free engines. Bain Capital takes Snowflake private.
The Buyer: 2.1x revenue. We love a meter. Even one nobody walks past anymore.
Outcome: Lost as a feature
Open tables made Snowflake one engine among many. A fee per row gave agents a reason to read the files directly, with free engines.