Ask HN: What Makes Tokens Expensive?
2 pointsby mtokarski5 hours ago2 comments
  • yorwba4 hours ago
    Willingness to pay. If people are willing to use Astra instead of Sol even if it costs twice as much, OpenAI has no need to make it cheaper. Prices only reflect costs in a competitive market where customers actively seek out cheaper alternatives.
  • verdverm5 hours ago
    costs are in a large part tied to model parameter count, eg. a small model fits on one GPU, the biggest models require an entire rack

    the primary difference you see through those prices is model size

    that you don't seem much capability difference is why Big Ai is pushing for regulatory capture, because small models are nearly as good for many tasks at a fraction of the cost, undermining the business model they have used to justify the most expensive infra build out in human history

    • PaulHoule5 hours ago
      Also I think there are diminishing returns to larger models and the harness can make up for some weaknesses. Like maybe the huge model can hypothetically answer a question off the cuff but the small model can get some search results and think about those and give you an answer.
      • kbrannigan4 hours ago
        It's not always larger models. Often time it's a smaller model fit for a specific use case. In the future we will see 16B models that are for : Legal, Healthcare, Science, Software Engineering, Education, Forestry, Music production
      • verdverm4 hours ago
        100%

        I am big believer (based on personal experience) that there is a ton of ROI in harness engineering, to go along with the context engineering, invariably intertwined