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Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

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Re: Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

#41

Post by OutOfHere »

backprop1989 wrote: post #6

Accounting rules. If the credits last indefinitely, any unused credits cannot be counted as revenue. Ran into this at my last company when we signed a big contract and gave them hundreds of thousands of dollars in non-expiring credits. Our accountant went nuts when we told him.

That's complete nonsense because Uber, Lyft, and some cloud service providers, and others do not have this issue. I can let my credit sit in them indefinitely. As such, it is deception and theft, plain and simple. They may not always offer a refund, but at least my credit doesn't expire.

Re: Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

#42

Post by OutOfHere »

georgel wrote: post #9
just-ok wrote: post #3

So does OpenAI (last I checked) which I sadly learned the hard way.

I lost my free credits they were giving away a couple years back, but when you pay they make it fairly clear they will expire. I see no issues here from any provider doing this, as long as it is made clear.

Even though they do make it clear, one should still have an issue with providers doing it. The reason is that various providers like Uber, Lyft, Namecheap, and some cloud vendors, etc. do not do it at all. As such it is a fairly unethical practice.

Re: Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

#43

Post by ikidd »

backprop1989 wrote: post #6

Accounting rules. If the credits last indefinitely, any unused credits cannot be counted as revenue. Ran into this at my last company when we signed a big contract and gave them hundreds of thousands of dollars in non-expiring credits. Our accountant went nuts when we told him.

You'd have to replace your accountants anywhere that gift cards aren't allowed to expire by law.

Re: Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

#44

Post by OutOfHere »

stingraycharles wrote: post #7
backprop1989 wrote: post #6

Accounting rules. If the credits last indefinitely, any unused credits cannot be counted as revenue. Ran into this at my last company when we signed a big contract and gave them hundreds of thousands of dollars in non-expiring credits. Our accountant went nuts when we told him.

Correct, then you effectively become a holder of someone else’s money, which creates all kinds of legal trouble (you need to put that money into a separate, third party’s account that shields it from bankruptcy etc). What they could do is automatically refund the credits to the original account as soon as they expire, but that would mean it’s not the deposit but every API request that would be counted as revenue, whi…

That's complete nonsense and lies because Uber, Lyft, and some cloud service providers do not have any trouble holding on to user credit indefinitely. I absolutely can let my credit sit in them indefinitely. As such, expiring my credit is deception and theft, plain and simple. It is a practice done by lazy robber accountants. The services that do it right may not always offer a refund, but at least my credit doesn't expire.

Re: Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

#45

Post by OutOfHere »

muzani wrote: post #30
eviks wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other numbers besides 1 and infinity, though

Tracking "revenue" past one financial year is its own accounting hell.

It is not actually revenue until it has been spent by the customer. Until then it's just customer funds.

Re: Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

#46

Post by msgodel »

mrbungie wrote: post #28
msgodel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they? useless tokens take just as much compute to generate as useful tokens. Burning a customer means acquiring a new one which is super expensive.

Yes, obviously it does cost compute (to them) but customers are not paying for the compute per-se, but rather for correct results/outcomes. This is a big alignment and accountability problem, relevant enough to some make companies like Lovable refund credits to customers when errors and token/credit mishandlings are too serious to ignore. That seems unsustainable in the long run though. I expect this to become even b…

Users are charged for compute and whether the outcome is positive or negative doesn't cost more for the company. I don't see where you got the idea that there are incentives to waste tokens.

EDIT (can't reply): Have you never run a business before?

Dating apps are weird because you can't have repeat customers without failing to deliver. With literally everything else repeat customers are what you want to optimize for. If your AI product fails to deliver your customers can't integrate it into their operations and you'll lose them eventually. That's a disaster.

Re: Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

#47

Post by akagusu »

mrbungie wrote: post #38
akagusu wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it feels like a weak excuse for "fuck the customer" as always. Of course it is just an excuse to "fuck the customer" and grab the money, but it is not something you should question, because in our society you don't question how companies make money. And it doesn't matter if you are the offended part, people will just protect the state of affairs,even at their own expense. Just look how people always find a justific…

Kind of understandable after seeing the reaction, I would guess that the same tricks are expected to be made by middle-man companies. Hate the game not the players, I guess?

> Hate the game not the players, I guess?

It's not like the game had fixed rules and everybody is playing by the same rules.

The rules are made by the players, while they are playing the game.

The problem is that are players following rules the benefit all players and are other players doing rules that benefit only their own at expense of the others

Re: Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

#48

Post by mrbungie »

msgodel wrote: post #46
mrbungie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, obviously it does cost compute (to them) but customers are not paying for the compute per-se, but rather for correct results/outcomes. This is a big alignment and accountability problem, relevant enough to some make companies like Lovable refund credits to customers when errors and token/credit mishandlings are too serious to ignore. That seems unsustainable in the long run though. I expect this to become even b…

Users are charged for compute and whether the outcome is positive or negative doesn't cost more for the company. I don't see where you got the idea that there are incentives to waste tokens. EDIT (can't reply): Have you never run a business before? Dating apps are weird because you can't have repeat customers without failing to deliver. With literally everything else repeat customers are what you want to optimize for…

Pretty sure we're talking past each other. If you want to continue investing on this: the perverse incentive is similar to dating apps. If you totally solve your problem with less tokens/turns, you eventually churn, paying less.

You can argue if they actually choose to follow it or not, but the objective truth is that the perverse incentive is there.

Re: Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

#49

Post by ManlyBread »

backprop1989 wrote: post #6

Accounting rules. If the credits last indefinitely, any unused credits cannot be counted as revenue. Ran into this at my last company when we signed a big contract and gave them hundreds of thousands of dollars in non-expiring credits. Our accountant went nuts when we told him.

How come this never happens to video game companies that give out various in-game currencies?

Re: Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

#50

Post by benabbott »

ManlyBread wrote: post #49
backprop1989 wrote: post #6

Accounting rules. If the credits last indefinitely, any unused credits cannot be counted as revenue. Ran into this at my last company when we signed a big contract and gave them hundreds of thousands of dollars in non-expiring credits. Our accountant went nuts when we told him.

How come this never happens to video game companies that give out various in-game currencies?

Because it does not cost them to provide in-game items (skins, weapons, etc.)

On the other hand, certainly does cost companies to provide compute.

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