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DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

api-docs.deepseek.com

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Re: DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

#421

Post by swasheck »

fridder wrote: post #360
toddmorey wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like the US for years has operated under the assumption that homeostasis for the global economy would always be “designed in California, assembled in China.” Like there was something in the American DNA that was lacking in China and innovation would always need to happen here. But China it seems doesn’t need the US to produce great cars, devices, robotics, or AI. We absolutely need China to help us build all…

Might be more far to say: they needed the US until they caught up. The massive straight up IP theft helps a lot here. Though theft might be too strong since a lot of companies knew what they were getting in to

IP theft may only be part of the story though. it’s a question of priorities. US optimizes for profit which can place limits reinvestment. China seems to optimize for ubiquity and dominance, and has the capital to throw at those goals. when you’re beholden to the shareholder/ceo/investor, you make concessions to stay within their will. when you’re beholden to the state, you do the same.

Re: DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

#422

Post by lejalv »

FabCH wrote: post #388
seviu wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap power at what cost for our planet? Not long ago we were crying death to bitcoin, it’s going to destroy the planet. Come AI, with unlimited power demand. Everybody screaming we need more power. We need infrastructure, clean energy, even nuclear. We are doing all in the wrong order.

China added 315GW of solar in 2025. For context, EU added 65 and US 43. In one year, China _added_ almost the total capacity EU has. China is the one place where AI actually can use clean energy…

...and China manufactured almost the totality of the EU and US solar capacity.

Re: DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

#423

Post by clear-octopus »

missedthecue wrote: post #204
raincole wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're selling at a loss (obviously). But why not? Gaining market share at a loss isn't the US's patent.

They haven't raised enough money to be selling at a loss. And selling at a loss to gain market share in an industry with zero switching friction between sellers is not a strategy. That doesn't make sense. Loss leading only works when - it leads to a situation that allows you to prevent competitors from selling to your customers (gilded age railroad and pipeline industries are great examples). Then you can eventually…

[dead]

Re: DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

#424

Post by lejalv »

themafia wrote: post #389
Nifty3929 wrote: post #306

China may be subsidizing this for now in a way that US companies can't or won't - but if they keep building power infrastructure and the US doesn't, then it will no longer require subsidy from them. It will simply be absolutely cheaper (including profit margin) to serve tokens in China. China is building for the future, while Western Democracies are afraid of the future, and of their own shadow.

> then it will no longer require subsidy from them Is there actually a huge Chinese consumer market for these products? If not then I'm not sure how you ever actually achieve this endpoint. Chinese wages and American wages are not nearly the same thing yet. > It will simply be absolutely cheaper (including profit margin) to serve tokens in China. It will simply create more pollution and environmental destruction too.…

You got me with fair. Gerrymandering, PACs, two-party system, electoral college.

Where do we start...

Re: DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

#425

Post by palata »

fridder wrote: post #360
toddmorey wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like the US for years has operated under the assumption that homeostasis for the global economy would always be “designed in California, assembled in China.” Like there was something in the American DNA that was lacking in China and innovation would always need to happen here. But China it seems doesn’t need the US to produce great cars, devices, robotics, or AI. We absolutely need China to help us build all…

Might be more far to say: they needed the US until they caught up. The massive straight up IP theft helps a lot here. Though theft might be too strong since a lot of companies knew what they were getting in to

> The massive straight up IP theft helps a lot here

I think this is vastly underestimating what "catching up" means. All my life, people have been saying "China copies". Now they are objectively better at many things (including robotics), and... well it seems that we cannot "just copy".

I saw western companies trying to "copy" superior Chinese technology, talking to brilliant engineers explaining how much they were learning by actually trying to copy.

The lesson I got from that is that China did not "copy"; they learned. And it took time, and now they are better. Now the western world has to learn from them, I guess.

Re: DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

#426

Post by swasheck »

skeledrew wrote: post #367
margalabargala wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Put another way: if the average US citizen doesn't subsidize the costs of these trillion dollar companies, China is gonna come get you. The future is blatantly going to be electric. Between cars, heat pumps, ranges, etc, the quantity of kilowatt hours consumed will rise dramatically per capita because they are replacing burned fossil fuels. We don't need to subsidize the trillion dollar companies, we can settle for…

> not cancelling wind and solar projects Tell it to the guy doing just that, as much as possible.

windmills cause cancer and kill bald eagles so we can’t do wind. /s

Re: DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

#427

Post by [deleted] »

radialstub wrote: post #405
hedora wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much of it is subsidies. If the open weight models are anything to judge by, China is taking price performance seriously, and the US model vendors are looking for performance at any cost. Like any other Pareto optimization, we end up paying 10x more for the last few percent improvement on benchmark scores. Of course, like literally every other time this has played out in computing history, the compan…

> Of course, like literally every other time this has played out in computing history, the companies focused on price performance will end up with more economic resources, and get to turn the upgrade crank more often and for longer. The iphone is the best selling computing device in history and is among the most expensive in its category.

[deleted]

Re: DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

#428

Post by dartharva »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #306

China may be subsidizing this for now in a way that US companies can't or won't - but if they keep building power infrastructure and the US doesn't, then it will no longer require subsidy from them. It will simply be absolutely cheaper (including profit margin) to serve tokens in China. China is building for the future, while Western Democracies are afraid of the future, and of their own shadow.

> while Western Democracies are afraid of the future, and of their own shadow.

Trillions of Dollars being invested against AI infra would indicate otherwise. US is in fact betting a lot of its economic future on AI.

Re: DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

#429

Post by victorbjorklund »

falcor84 wrote: post #410
api wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US committed massive IP theft in the 19th century when we industrialized.

I would appreciate some reading pointers about this.

dig into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Håkan_Lans for example

Re: DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent

#430

Post by CryptoBanker »

wg0 wrote: post #13

If you have not tried DeepdeekV4 you're missing out. The pricing makes it unbelievably good. The chains of thought for Deepseek are very very interesting reads. Open code won't show them but do read them and you'll be surprised at how underrated the model is. My model usage is very low but I still do pay directly to Deepseek regularly as my tribute and contribution to them open sourcing their models as my gratitude a…

Opencode absolutely will show you. You just have to toggle “Expand Reasoning”
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