I'm not just suggesting that, I'm trying to be crystal clear: it's a gap that probably cuts TAM by 95% or more. Most LLM users are not software engineers. Even those that are don't care enough to muck with their settings to try out a model. Keep in mind I'm not answering the question "Is this hard to install?" - I'm answering the question "Why aren't people talking about this?"

Thats not absurd. Do you know what software engineers make? Do you know what a Starbucks coffee costs? 50 bucks is nothing for someone in that life.

For me it's about tolerance. When I was 13, I could and would customize everything, so much that the computer repair shop told my father that their son "likely is a hacker or something".

At 40, I could easily configure claude code to use another model, even if there weren't any official guides with a bit of MITM fun, but I don't want to invest my attention / heavily use something that will most likely break in the near future.

It's crazy that apparently doing math without knowing how to do long division by hand is normal now.

The real question is: should the file be edited in emacs or vim?

Here are a few frictions I see that reduce reach, in order:

1) You haven't even heard of it.

2) You have to know to look for both GLM and Z.ai. These are usually in the same article when reporting about GLM is written, at least.

3) You have to understand there could be a benefit in trying it; you have to want to try it for some reason. Their own blog post puts it below Opus 4.8 in each of the three benchmarks they used.

4) You have to figure out the pricing, which isn't obviously in the blog post...

5) When I first went to Z.ai, I got an error popup (not logged in): "You do not have permission to access this resource. Please contact your administrator for assistance." I am using a personal computer...

6) When I typed something in the resultant field and pressed enter, I got "Clear Current Chat? To start a new chat, your current conversation will be discarded. Sign in to save chats"

I think today's article helped with 1 and 2, which helps their top of funnel. But they're fighting a big uphill battle.