Disagree, Opus-tier models are the workhorses. You can get a ton done with them on a $100 subscription.

And for those on API billing? Opus is still quite pricy for what you're getting done with it.

[delayed]

Why stay on API billing? A $200 monthly subscription has a crazy amount of usage and more than enough for a couple of concurrent projects.

Enterprises with more than 150 seats have to pay API costs.

Or get multiple teams. Just use git instead of artifacts ;-)

Because you can't get subscription if your company has more than 150 users.

So they move to non SOTA models.

If you're on API billing then presumably you're a business, and $1,000 a month is still reasonable for that quality of work

Those subscriptions won't be subsidized forever. At least not as much as they are today.

API token inference is subsidizing the rest of the business.

Price per token is dropping (though anthropic are doing dastardly things such as using new tokenizers that use 30% more tokens), efficiency will likely increase.

If the subscriptions (of all of the big companies - unlikely?) give a poor amount of value in the future, will move to trusted/open router and use a harness that uses the latest cheap good models for most things, more expensive models as orchestrators.

Already there are non-SOTA models that should be sufficient for most non-coding tasks, and soon for coding, also.

The future is bright, in that respect, without subsidizing the ridiculous IPOs.

People keep saying this, but inference itself is not what is being subsidized. The expense for electricity/hardware/datacenter operations/etc for an inference token is less than what they charge for it, so that cost doesn’t HAVE to go up to be profitable.

The thing that is being subsidized is the TRAINING costs, and that is because they aren’t selling enough tokens yet to pay for the training costs. This is just like most other growth businesses, though, and if enough people use enough inference, it can be self sustaining.

Or $20 for the same amount of work with US/EU hosted Deepseek flash v4.1.

Assuming the price would converge to the subscription price, not the API price.

For users who pay subscription costs, 100% right.

But for enterprises, who have to pay API costs with no discounts, no way.

Only because you're being heavily subsidized.

They make money on API costs not subscriptions. Subscriptions are not going to last forever

I like that you gave an argument and careful reasoning instead of just a vague claim based on common meme about ejaculation.

How is tokenmaxxing like ejaculating exactly? I don't follow the analogy.

I think he's just saying tokenmaxxing is a temporary hype lol, probably fueled by subsidized subscriptions. When that's over, these cheaper models might get more usage.

Why is this exchange reminding me of that You Can See Everything documentary?

The analogy made sense to me: Tokenmaxxing policies were the result of an irrational drive by execs who just craved an, ahem, explosion of metrics due to the excitement over new technology. Now that cost sensitivities are setting in, there’s a growing sense of unease that maybe they were in an altered state when they created the mess and now that the excitement has passed they have to clean it up.

So people had this drive to use tokens, and once they experienced the release from using the tokens they went into a refractory period where their reasoning is no longer being overridden by the need to use tokens? And later I guess they'll start to feel more and more of a need to use tokens and this will repeat?

Or is it just a throwaway phrase that makes no sense?

Here is the argument

1) There was a false narrative called tokenmaxxing whereby one is more productive by spending more tokens

2) This narrative was fueled by discount prices on tokens (which still happens to this day on subscriptions)

3) There is a point where we collectively realize that tokenmaxxing was a state of mind that is not rational

4) We will then pay API prices because LLMs are obviously amazing but no one will offer subscriptions

5) API costs of Opus 5.5 and Fable tier become uneconomical

6) That leaves us in Sonnet/Haiku tier

I understand his assertion, and I can make up an argument that fits it too, probably a few arguments that aren't even compatible with each other, but what you said isn't what he said, you are just assuming all of this, and also nowhere here does it explain how this fits an analogy of "post nut clarity".