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Agreed I’ve seen what they’re paying at work for the OpenAI API but I also think that includes reserved capacity and ZDR O_o. Try some add on credits next time if you can. I was curious at how far $20 would go (500 credits). Watched them go to zero over an hour and assumed it’d stop. It then ran for another 6 hours and completed the task despite the meter at 0. What a task means is very unclear but it’s definitely not pricing sol at $20/500 credits an hr in tokens.
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> Their api pricing is absurdly expensive.

I assume at this point that it subsidizes subscriptions.

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Subscriptions are a mechanism to attract developers, who then advocate that their company should use the API.
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yes, it absolutely does.

I've gotten more work done on a second chatgpt pro $100/mo subscription than I did with ~$150 of paying for usage through the app.

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Massively subsidized. As soon as my Claude switches from subscription to overage I have to tap out quickly.
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This is a big part of the reason I went local-only. Subscription limits are horrible for having a decent workflow.
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Yeah, it sure was convenient that there was a RAM pricing crisis right when Apple was making local inference viable. All because of a promise that AI companies will buy more of it... with money they don't yet have, whereas Apple does have lots of money.
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Because API pricing is for corporations and subscriptions are for consumers.
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Are we supposed to just shrug at the idea of businesses paying 10x more for raw materials than consumers? How long can this go on?
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Hopefully for a long time this is like the beginnings of a vac startup, enjoy while you can before the enshitification comes
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I thought corporations were meant to be smart and get b2b / volume discounts - not pay 5-10x what the man in the street is paying.
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FOMO. This won't last forever.
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