[gizmodo59]

Inference is profitable. Companies lose money because:

1. Training is expensive. Not just compute but getting the data, researchers salaries etc 2. You have to keep producing new models to ensure people use your inference and there seems to be no end to this. So they have to pour more billions to keep the cycle going on 3. People salary and other admin cost are not that high compared to 1 and 2.

[atq2119]

Inference at per-token pricing is profitable.

The article's point is that if you're relying on flat fee subscriptions, a rude awakening may be coming. That seems plausible to me. Issues around token quotas are a frequent topic on HN.

[fg137]

So? How does it change the equation?

Nobody is going to charge "inference price" for model usage.

[hibikir]

Given that it is no a monopoly, and changing providers is very easy, it's not going to be all that easy for anyone to charge a lot more than inference price. It's not someone in cloud A, facing huge costs to migrate to cloud provider B.