"There was a time when everyone used Github Copilot."
There was no such time. Even if everyone means "every software engineer" or any variation thereof, and we substitute any other such tool for GC.
You are going to get priced out of the best AI coding tools (2025)
51–60 of 92 posts
Re: You are going to get priced out of the best AI coding tools (2025)
#52If you know anything about tech, you will know that tech as an industry is highly deflationary--billionares use the same iPhones as you do! (in contrast, they don't drive the same cars you do) This boils down to the fact that chip fabs have massive fixed costs and near-zero marginal costs, and these chips power all of tech. So the more chips they can produce for a given fab, the more profit they can make, meaning tha…
> billionares use the same iPhones as you do! Not if they have the brain disease which makes this kind of thing appealing: https://caviar.global/catalog/custom-iphone/iphone-17/?sort=... Yes that flagship model incorporates an actual Rolex Daytona in solid gold.
I guess billionaires don't charge wirelessly. They just grab their backup custom iphone when the first one dies.
Re: You are going to get priced out of the best AI coding tools (2025)
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And if the big labs are able to reliably block distillation, The big labs will not be able to reliably block distillation without further inhibiting general use of the models, which itself will help tip the balance away from commercial models.
No, you're wrong. It won't tip it away from commercial models. Trying to run open weight modesl to do inference is something 99% of people around the world can't do because it's expensive and technically challenging and the results are poor compared to the main companies. If they get rid of free usage people will simply pay for it.
> Trying to run open weight modesl to do inference is something 99% of people around the world can't do because it's expensive and technically challenging and the results are poor compared to the main companies.
Just because a model is open doesn't mean that there aren't services that will run it for you (and which won't share any limits that the commercial model vendors impose to fight distillation because neither the host not the model creator cares if you are using the service to distill the model.)
Many users of, particularly the larger, open models now are using such services, not running them using their own local or cloud compute.
Re: You are going to get priced out of the best AI coding tools (2025)
#54I think Warhol’s quote is nostalgic but incomplete. I’m priced out of the best cars, best houses, best home theater systems, best schools. Even someone making $300k/year can’t afford all of the best of everything. Sure, the iPhone has been “the best” possible phone which was also used by nearly everyone, but I think that’s an anomaly even in the short run. Right now I’m paying $200/mo for Claude code to do an amount…
Why do you expect the price to get closer? You can get a table from Ikea that costs a fraction of what an artisan makes. They're not the same final product but their functions is the same.
Either AI gets more expensive, or the 10k outsourcing gets cheaper.
Re: You are going to get priced out of the best AI coding tools (2025)
#55I used to take Uber to work daily in 2016. It cost around 3 - 4 dollars per 5 miles ride. Now the same ride cost $24 [0]. There's no indication that AI coding tools won't follow the same path given they are funded by VC.
But I think what matters is that the new generation of coders will adopt it as the norm. Gone are the days where you download a free text editor and just trial and error with the documentation one tab away. Every bootcamp is teaching react with clause and cursor. You have to pay to for a subscription to build your BMI calculator.
[0]: https://idiallo.com/blog/paying-for-my-8-years-old-ride
Re: You are going to get priced out of the best AI coding tools (2025)
#56This chart is missing all of the non-us competition, which while not at the top, is always right behind the flagship models. These competitors also have much lower inference costs, due to the model architectures being built with a focus on efficiency. Silicon valley is building big block Chevys, while China is making Datsuns.
Re: You are going to get priced out of the best AI coding tools (2025)
#57It's possible that prices will go up (although the cost of pure inference tends to go down; the question is more how to amortize the cost of training new models). But this is absurd: > the cheapest usable tier of Claude Code is $100/mo If you pay by the token instead of with a subscription, and don't send the entirety of your code base with each request, costs are ridiculously low. Like, $50 will last a minimum of 3…
I am imagining working for a company in the future where prompt reviews are required because the company is cheap.
Re: You are going to get priced out of the best AI coding tools (2025)
#58If you know anything about tech, you will know that tech as an industry is highly deflationary--billionares use the same iPhones as you do! (in contrast, they don't drive the same cars you do) This boils down to the fact that chip fabs have massive fixed costs and near-zero marginal costs, and these chips power all of tech. So the more chips they can produce for a given fab, the more profit they can make, meaning tha…
> billionares use the same iPhones as you do! Not if they have the brain disease which makes this kind of thing appealing: https://caviar.global/catalog/custom-iphone/iphone-17/?sort=... Yes that flagship model incorporates an actual Rolex Daytona in solid gold.
That's got the exact same processing hardware in it though, which was the OP's point. Not that they can't have a fancier case.
Re: You are going to get priced out of the best AI coding tools (2025)
#59> OpenAI reportedly discussed charging $20k/month on PhD-level research agents with investors. At this price point, it will be cheaper to hire a bunch of actual PhDs. The vast majority who will not earn anything close to 250k per year in most of the world.
I also seriously question what even does PhD-level mean in the context of a model? Someone with a PhD has developed a very deep but narrow knowledge of a particular domain and has contributed to at least pushing out our sphere of knowledge a tiny bit in that pillar of competency. A model is a best a brittle, fractured and often inconsistent representation of written human knowledge and lacks most basic intuitive grounding in the world due to the lack of embodiment.
In my experience, to safely get any value out of an LLM, you have to be more knowledgeable than the LLM on a topic. So in this case, you'd really need a PhD to use this tool, so at best its a $20k a month research aid, which honestly is far more expensive than a handful of grad students, and probably less effective.
Re: You are going to get priced out of the best AI coding tools (2025)
#60> The top tier subscription prices are increasing exponentially "Let's just make random shit up and expand it into a whole blog post." Seriously does anyone believe this premise? The Claude Max ($200/mo) is the same kind of product as Github Copilot ($10/mo) so the price 20x-ed?
OpenAI doubled Codex limits until April. If there is an issue with their platform they reset the limits early. This happened many times in December. They also added the 5.3 Spark model that has its own limit!
The author doesn't even mention Codex even though it likely will out compete Claude Code.