> it usually is good enough for most tasks

The model is fantastic. And costs almost nothing. The only problem I see is that they will train on your data.

There are zero-data-retention providers of DeepSeek models, of which I have used openrouter (with zdr guardrails), and fireworks. But these are 3x to 5x more expensive than directly using DeepSeek, possibly due to poor caching. Thats the price to pay for zdr.

Who do you buy DeepSeek from?

I bought it through OpenRouter and used it with Pi agent.

The model was good, but there appeared to be a pricing glitch or something, because it burned through $50 in under an hour on pretty trivial stuff.

Pi agent claimed it only used like $1. OpenRouter claimed differently and said I used all $50.

It doesn't matter if it's cheaper, specially if it consumes more resources to do the same task as the competition

Besides, in a few days, they'll change their pricing, doubling it during their peak hours, so, realistically:

- It will be 2x more expensive if you live in their time zone

- It will be 1.5x more expensive if you live in a time zone that is adjacent to theirs

- It will be the same price IF you use it while they sleep (during offpeak hours)

It's still cheap, but the price/performance ratio is not that good

DeepSeek V4 didn't produce the same impact as V3, and Huawei dropping the ball is making it worse

They had promised massive price cuts for July, so now (Huawei chips), but they had to rush the cuts because lack of momumtum (they advertised them as promotion), and are now backtracking by introducing this peak hours pricing

Trump decided to help them a little by allowing them to buy more NVIDIA chips, so what exactly is China's role in all of this?

We are supposed to blindly pat them in the back while praising them, all while handing them over our data? I thought they were dangerous competition threatening our model of society