I'm starting to realize that fixed-price agent subscriptions follow the same profit model as gym memberships.
replyPeople on OpenClaw discord were bragging about having this stuff running 24/7 and using billions of tokens. I think one guy was using billions per day. (I might have misplaced some zeros but I remember one guy's bill would have been $1000 with API pricing. Per day.)
replyAt the time, enforcement was pretty random, and I think based on how heavy your traffic was.
They weren't all on Claude (though it was the preferred setup) and some people had dozens of accounts hooked up with proxies to avoid hitting limits.
Then just... charge everyone in same way ? The problem is entirely caused by their ass-backwards billing methods
replyBut the have an ass-backwards billing method to appeal to the masses in the first place. It's like price dumping as long as they can do it with the investors' money that they somehow swindled. Their competitors do the same thing, so it is either go along with it, or be left behind in the dust. A contest of endurance in financial swindling.
replyI for one hope it all comes crashing down, when reality hits these companies. I like being able to ask some LLM a question, when I don't know something. I also like asking it for examples. But I don't let it write my code and burn tokens to no end until it passes some tests or something. My usage is at human speed, and I feel like that is sufficient for the technology to be helpful. For the rest I will use my biological wet ware, thank you.
They're subsidizing the plans. A lot of subscriptions in general do this: the users that barely do anything subsidize the users that do a whole lot. If every user starts doing a whole lot more than usual, you have a problem. Which means OpenClaw poses a problem, because not only do existing users start doing a whole lot more than usual, but a huge influx of new users start doing the whole lot too.
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