A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries • Hacker News Board

Re: A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

#11

Post by hdgvhicv » Mon, Aug 11, 2025, 9:22 AM UTC

v5v3 wrote: post #4

I think one step at a time. There are still many countries where digital literacy is very low. So first step is to ensure everyone has internet/mobile phone/laptop and knows how to use them.

I take one look at our smartphone/social media addicted society and the damage that does and think of the parallels of forcing opium on a population in the 19th century

Not that the rural third world don’t already have phones. Whether they are engineering to be as addictive as crack like in the west I’m not sure.

Re: A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

#12

Post by lgsilver » Mon, Aug 11, 2025, 9:22 AM UTC

A CS degree costs something like 124 yrs salary for someone in a low income nation—and it’s a much longer harder road. I’m not AI’s biggest fan, but arguably, this type of tech actually narrows the gap. Even if it’s expensive.

Re: A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

#13

Post by FergusArgyll » Mon, Aug 11, 2025, 9:23 AM UTC

Wait till you find out how much an apartment costs!

Re: A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

#14

Post by closetkantian » Mon, Aug 11, 2025, 9:23 AM UTC

varbhat wrote: post #9

> low-income someone has to pay for the servers at the end. are you asking for openai to subsidize ChatGPT Pro for low-income countries? Since OpenAI is for-profit entity focussed on profits, I don't think it might be a wise idea financially for OpenAI to do so.

Well it was founded as a non-profit

Re: A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

#15

Post by epolanski » Mon, Aug 11, 2025, 9:26 AM UTC

lgsilver wrote: post #12

A CS degree costs something like 124 yrs salary for someone in a low income nation—and it’s a much longer harder road. I’m not AI’s biggest fan, but arguably, this type of tech actually narrows the gap. Even if it’s expensive.

Do you have a source for this claim?

Re: A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

#16

Post by renewiltord » Mon, Aug 11, 2025, 9:31 AM UTC

Yes, obviously. It's advanced technology. Are we just dividing two numbers now?

Median people from the Democratic Republic of Congo will have to work for 6 years to pay a PG&E bill.

Re: A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

#17

Post by renewiltord » Mon, Aug 11, 2025, 9:31 AM UTC

closetkantian wrote: post #14

varbhat wrote: post #9

> low-income someone has to pay for the servers at the end. are you asking for openai to subsidize ChatGPT Pro for low-income countries? Since OpenAI is for-profit entity focussed on profits, I don't think it might be a wise idea financially for OpenAI to do so.

Well it was founded as a non-profit

Well, technically they still haven't profited har har har

Re: A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

#18

Post by epolanski » Mon, Aug 11, 2025, 9:33 AM UTC

Nonsense.

Albeit I'm no economist, I'm quite sure you should compare salaries to costs, not gdp/capita. Whether unemployed/retirees and children can afford a ChatGPT pro subscription seems irrelevant.

Let's take Madagascar, GDP per capita is $ 538. But the average salary is above $ 150/ month.

What interests us really though is not really the average salary in the country, rather the white collar (the end user's) worker's one.

In Madagascar software engineering salaries seems to range from an average $ 850/month for junior roles to well beyond $ 2000 per senior/specialized roles.

And this further ignores that such expenses are generally paid by employees, often with bulk discounts compared to B2C customers.

Which leads us to conclude that if ChatGPT Pro is such a performance multiplier, it is worth the price even in the poorest of the poorest countries in the world.

Re: A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

#19

Post by sebzim4500 » Mon, Aug 11, 2025, 9:34 AM UTC

>I find this very troubling for two reasons. First, while Claude and OpenAI are new, Google has been around for a long time. It should have thought better about pricing so that the tool is within the reach of the developing world.

Why? I don't see a practical argument for why Google would want to offer this service at a massive loss.

Re: A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

#20

Post by esperent » Mon, Aug 11, 2025, 9:34 AM UTC

lgsilver wrote: post #12

A CS degree costs something like 124 yrs salary for someone in a low income nation—and it’s a much longer harder road. I’m not AI’s biggest fan, but arguably, this type of tech actually narrows the gap. Even if it’s expensive.

This is utter bullshit. An American CS degree might cost that much, but why would someone from a developing country (who isn't rich or getting a scholarship) want one of those?

The actual cost of a CS degree varies a lot depending on the country, but here in Vietnam I think it's about $1000 per term at public universities. That's not cheap, it's about a year at minimum wage here. But it's a long, long way from your claim of 124 years.

And to forestall the obvious next claim: Vietnamese education is quite good actually. Maybe you won't be going to Harvard but there's plenty of universities in the top 1000 worldwide with a few in the top 200 (no idea for the ranking for CS specifically though).