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james2doyleyesterday at 11:45 PM5 repliesview on HN

You’re paying the subsidized cost. Those margins will shrink once the real bill comes due. I really think everyone will look back at this time as the golden area of cheap AI. We are already seeing the costs (and restrictions/limits) creep up with the Western models.


Replies

Petersipoiyesterday at 11:50 PM

I think the opposite. AI will get cheaper as models become more efficient and we solve the datacenter/energy problem. I bet 10 years from now AI, that is way better than what we have today, will be close to free.

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Spacemoltetoday at 5:14 AM

It amazes me how productive it's possible to be using AI, but I also has this nagging feeling that we are being reeled into being so reliant on this that when the price starts going up, we will simply eat the cost.

The math is pretty simple, and it's easy to justify still paying the price even if it goes up 10 fold, when compared to hirering more resources its still cheap.

So I guess having multiple players and competition in the market is the key?

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consumer451yesterday at 11:58 PM

> You’re paying the subsidized cost.

100% agree. I have been trying to tell everyone to build their ideas, and exploit this environment where 100B of VC money into OpenAI/Anthropic = some percentage of money invested into your idea. This is the golden era of building! The music is gonna stop soon. Build now ffs!

zrn900today at 12:25 PM

> I really think everyone will look back at this time as the golden area of cheap AI.

Chinese models like Deepseek v4 are as good and 10 times cheaper. You can even run Deepseek locally. So no, cheap AI wont be over. Just the US investors won't be able to profit off of the artificial bubble that is there now but wont be in the future.

HDThoreauntoday at 2:49 AM

Compute has been getting exponentially cheaper nonstop for decades. Much more likely that current capabilities are effectively free within 5-10 years