> amount of people who care enough to buy a $3k - $10k server and set this up compared to just using ChatGPT is probably very small

So I maxed that out, and it’s with Apple’s margins. I suspect you could do it for $5k.

I’d also note that for heavy users of ChatGPT, the difference in energy costs for a home setup and the price for ChatGPT tokens may make this financially compelling for heavy users.

True, it may be profitable for pro users. At $200 a month for ChatGPT Pro, it may only take a few years to recoup the initial costs. Not sure about energy costs though.

And of course you’d be getting a worse model, since no open source model currently is as good as the best proprietary ones.

Though that gap should narrow as the open models improve and the proprietary ones seemingly plateau.