[diggan]

> Google’s ability to offer inference for free is a massive competitive advantage vs everyone else:

Haven't tried Jules myself yet, still playing around with Codex, but personally I don't really care if it's free or not. If it solves my problems better than the others, then I'll use it, otherwise I'll use other things.

I'm sure I'm not alone in focusing on how well it works, rather than what it costs (until a certain point).

[jsemrau]

Technically speaking,the strategy they execute is called "Loss Leader". As Loss Leader, the company offers a product at a reduced price to attract users, create stickiness, and through that aims to capture the market.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lossleader.asp

[dgb23]

"Loss leader" sounds way better than "price dumping".

[jimbokun]

It's the Costco Rotisserie Chicken of AI models!

[YetAnotherNick]

That's all good and well but its takes time to compare the products. And people are rarely willing to use paid product for comparison.

[diggan]

> That's all good and well but its takes time to compare the products

Hence many of us are still busy trying out Codex to it's full extent :)

> And people are rarely willing to use paid product for comparison.

Yeah, and I'm usually the same, unless there is some free trial or similar, I'm unlikely to spend money unless I know it's good.

My own calculation changed with the coming of better LLMs though. Even paying 200 EUR/month can be easily regained if you're say a freelance software engineer, so I'm starting to be a lot more flexible in "try for one month" subscriptions.

[xiphias2]

I haven't read too much from others, but personally for me Codex online form was the biggest productivity boost in coding since the original Copilot.

Cursor just deleted my unit tests too many times in agent mode.

Codex 5x-ed my output, though the code is worse than I would write it, at this point the productivity improvement with passing tests, not deleting tests is just too good to be ignored anymore.

[ijidak]

What do you mean by "online form"?

[diggan]

Codex seems to also be available via CLI (https://github.com/openai/codex) as well as via the web (https://chatgpt.com/codex).

[miki123211]

I just noticed that this is definitely true for me, but not if the product is pay to go.

I have far fewer qualms about spending $10 on credits, even if I decide the product isn't worth it and never actually spend those credits, than about taking a free trial for a $5 subscription.

[nathan_compton]

I tried using Codex today and it sucked real bad, so maybe Jules will actually be good?

[kristopolous]

$0 opens up new doors. You use it differently at $0. Fundamentally.

[vincnetas]

until you built your stuff on 0$ assumption start depending on it and then the price increases.

[jasonjmcghee]

And if it's a good product / you're locked in, you pay up.

[dmos62]

Well, this isn't the first github-based agent. A well-known one is https://app.all-hands.dev/. And, there are great cheap or even free more general agents. So, given that this agent isn't a novelty, price is naturally an immediate talking point.