> 2. There hasn't been a real incentive to work on cost optimization for data centers and the hardware they contain. When/if price hikes happen and send people scrambling to use other models or drastically reduce AI usage, this will suddenly need to happen.

It's actually worse, the AI explosion just hikes hardware prices faster than capacity can catch up - and it will likely not catch up in a while because investments are both expensive, long, and might not seem all that good idea while bubble is still bubbling.

The massive push frankly also made it unsustainable. If RAM didn't cost 3x and compute manufacturers would have to compete instead of selling every unit instantly at whatever price they want the frontier model tokens might've costed closer to sustainable amount