[ImprobableTruth]

If you compare with e.g. Deepseek and other hosters, you'll find that OpenAI is actually almost certainly charging very high margins (Deepseek has an 80% profit margin and they're 10x cheaper than openai).

The training/R&D might make OpenAI burn VC cash, but this isn't comparable with companies like WeWork whose products actively burn cash

[camillomiller]

They said themselves that even inference is losing them money tho, or did I get that wrong?

[ImprobableTruth]

On their subscriptions, specifically the pro subscription, because it's a flatrate to their most expensive model. The API prices are all much more expensive. It's unclear whether they're losing money on the normal subscriptions, but if so, probably not by much. Though it's definitely closer to what you described, subsidizing it to gain 'mindshare' or whatever.