Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
ACCount37 | on: The $15,000 AI Bill. Your $20 Subscription is a DELUSION [video]
If you're claiming "AI inference is sold at a loss", it's on you to prove it.

All we have actual evidence of is: some users use enough AI that the subscription is sold at a loss to them (up to degenerate cases: usage maxed out at all times), if billed by API metrics, while some other users are, by the same metrics, profitable (down to degenerate cases: a forgotten subscription with $20 a month and 0 usage).

We don't know how API prices relate to costs - we only have estimates. And we certainly don't know how much inference does an average subscription user spend.

If you have some sort of information that would decisively prove that the aggregate is "AI company N is losing money on subscriptions", then, show it.

Or is it you who's blinded by faith? Like some sort of AI bubble cultist? The bubble is real, you just have to believe in it?

BosunoB | parent
Very well said. People are making a lot of claims when very little knowledge of the financials is public. If you actually look at the numbers, there are plenty of ways in which API revenue and forgotten subs could more than make the difference for power users. Even if power users are getting 10-20x their sub fee in tokens, the math could still work out. Personally, I doubt more than 5% of Claude subs even approach max usage, because it requires having so many agents running all of the time.

I imagine we'll know in a few months when these companies go public.