[skort]

Right, but these companies are selling their products on the basis that you can offload a good amount of the thinking. And it seems a good deal of investment in AI is also based on this premise. I don't disagree with you, but it's sorta fucked that so much money has been pumped into this and that markets seem to still be okay with it all.

[AlexandrB]

They're not selling them, they're still giving them away. Once the VC money runs out we'll see what the actual cost of this stuff is.

[blitzar]

> They're not selling them

I have a receipt of sale that says otherwise.

[spongebobstoes]

most inference runs at 40%+ margin

[tecleandor]

Yeah, they are _saying_ that they're selling you a service but there will be surprises...

[gscott]

How long can AI be subsidized in the name of growth? They need to radically increase the price. If I replace a $150k yr employee should I pay $200 a month or $2,000 a month. $200 is too cheap.

[TeMPOraL]

$200 a month with Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 won't let you replace a $12.5k / month employee - but it's cheap enough that everyone, including you and even your employees, will want to see how much utility they can squeeze out of it.

This is a price to get people hooked up, yes, but also to get them to explore all kinds of weird tricks and wacky workflows, especially ones that are prohibitively costly when billed per token. In some sense, this is crowdsourcing R&D - and then when Opus 7 or whatever comes along to take advantage of best practices people worked out, and that turns out to be good enough to replace your $150k/yr / $12.5k/mo employee - then they'll jack up prices to $10k/month or whatever.

[wqaatwt]

> replace a $150k

Seems tangential? Price entirely depends on what consumers/businesses willing to pay and the degree of competition

[benterix]

> If I replace a $150k yr employee

Based on my experience with Claude Code (which is relatively good TBH), I'd say good luck with that.

[whywhywhywhy]

You can spend $2000 a month if you want, they have an pay what you use option.