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Spending Too Much Money on a Coding Agent

(allenpike.com)
152 points GavinAnderegg | 2 comments | 01 Jul 25 12:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.409s | source
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quonn ◴[03 Jul 25 16:55 UTC] No.44457026[source]▶
Charging $200/month is economically only possible if there is not a true market for LLMs or some sort of monopoly power. Currently there is no evidence that this will be the case. There are already multiple competitors and the barrier to entry is relatively low (compared to e.g. the car industry or other manufacturing industries), there are no network effects (like for social networks) and no need to get the product 100% right (like compatibility to Photoshop or Office) and the prices for training will drop further. Furthermore $200 is not free (like Google).

Can anyone name one single widely-used digital product that does _not_ have to be precisely correct/compatible/identical to The Original and that everyone _does_ pay $200/month for?

Therefore, should prices that users pay get anywhere even close to that number, there will naturally be opportunities for competitors to bring prices down to a reasonable level.

replies(2): >>44457159 #>>44459124 #
1. chis ◴[03 Jul 25 17:10 UTC] No.44457159[source]▶
I think you forgot to consider the cost of providing the inference.
replies(1): >>44458062 #
2. quonn ◴[03 Jul 25 18:48 UTC] No.44458062[source]▶
Well, that could be an additional problem.

My point was not that AI will necessarily be cheaper to run than $200, but that there is not much profit to be made. Of course the cost of inference will form a lower bound on the price as well.