[bazodedo]

The "premium request" billing model where you pay per invocation and not for usage is very obviously not a sustainable approach and creates skewed incentives (e.g. for microsoft to degrade response quality), especially with the shift towards longer running agentic sessions as opposed to simple oneshot chat questions, which the system was presumably designed for. Its just a very obvious fundamental incompatibility and the system is in increasing need of replacement. Usage linked (pay per token) is probably the way to go, as is industry standard.

[Grimblewald]

Paying per token also encouragages reduced quality only now you pay. If they can subtbtly degrade quality or even probability of 1shot solutions, they get you paying for more tokens. Under current economic models and incentive structures, enshitification is inevitable, since we're optimizing for it long term.

[jtbayly]

What if there is actual competition, though? That’s the hope I keep having. If there is a cheaper, better model, I can switch.

[Grimblewald]

For that to work it requires a free market, llms in their current format are a neccesarily closed market. It's like mobile phones. You'll get a sleek somewhat passable product increasingly dated and dysfunctional which every year serves you less and someone else more. Given I can't decide smart phones in their current form are shit, i'll make something better (without enromous capital) meams we're failing open market conditions. Do you see the point i am trying to make?

[jtbayly]

That’s not what free market means.

[Grimblewald]

Tell my economics textbook not me. Free markets are defined, in part, by the absence of coercive impediments to economic activity, which explicitley includes restrictions on entry.

see "low barriers for entry"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market

[jtbayly]

"Low" is relative. But we've got people creating new models with millions of dollars, not billions. Granted, not thousands either. It's low enough that I don't think the barrier to entry is a problem.