Just because API pricing would've been $2180.16 doesn't mean that's the value of those tokens. For starters, you personally probably wouldn't have paid that. But also, sales price isn't value. This is like saying, oh, I saw this bar of gold somewhere for $10000 but got it here for $1000! So I got $10000 worth of gold for $1000! - no, the value of that gold is determined by its weight, which wasn't even mentioned.

We have no market convergence on tokens yet (and it'll differ between LLMs), so it's impossible to say what value you got for your $200.

He's saying he's getting a great deal...a token from Opus on Claude code is the same as a token from Opus on the API. I remain as confused as Simon. He's not talking about "here's the ROI I got from my $100 subscription" it's "here's how much I saved from getting the monthly subscription instead of sending things through an API".

No, value is determined by what participants in a market are willing to pay for something. The only reason you are able to say that the value of gold is determined by its weight is that gold is a commodity and no matter what you paid for it you'll find others willing to pay market price.

Simon is saying that companies are (today) willing to pay API prices for tokens which is as good as any determination of value.

> Just because API pricing would've been $2180.16 doesn't mean that's the value of those tokens.

You seem to be suggesting the price of tokens is entirely disconnected to the cost of providing the service? I don't see much basis for that assumption.