Not to mention the API plans are also still in their "lose money, just get the suckers hooked like addicts" phase. Once the reality-based pricing comes into play, it's a coin flip of whether the bulk of the companies fail, or they get to live off government subsidies for a few decades.

On the plus side, I'm happy I'll have a nice hay barn when the local half-built AI data center is abandoned.

▲

simonw 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I believe that API pricing runs at a healthy margin, at least compared to the server and energy costs used to serve the tokens.

Recent conversation here on that topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47062534#47063134

▲

bigbuppo 2 hours ago | parent [-]

There isn't a single thing about how the AI companies are operating that looks like a normal business. I know people who were in the room when Scott Sullivan, CFO of Worldcom, assured everyone that the future was bright at Worldcom days before they collapsed. So you'll have to excuse me if I don't believe the words of someone whose sole job is to justify hundreds of billions of dollars being thrown at Anthropic when he says their future is bright.

	▲	simonw 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I agree that the amount of investment thrown at these companies is absurd. But I also think that their API token pricing represents a real margin over the inference costs for serving those tokens. Both things can be true at once.