points by altruios 23 hours ago

> If I had been paying API pricing it would have been $2,180.16

The point being made above is that API pricing is calculated... somehow... seemingly arbitrarily. Possibly untethered to the infrastructure costs entirely: which would be the basis of any 'value', however that holds the labor theory of value, which isn't accurate either. So how do you accurately price these tokens at all (other than through price-discovery: which is slow, messy and fuzzy)?

NitpickLawyer 23 hours ago

> So how do you accurately price these tokens at all

Like anything else in the economy: at the point where enough customers can pay you, and not enough will go to the cheaper competition.

  • altruios 20 hours ago

    > at the point where enough customers can pay you

    > (other than through price-discovery: which is slow, messy and fuzzy)

    I notice a distinct lack of reading or comprehension (from everyone around me now, not just this comment) which worries me. I worry if LLM's are to blame. No one reads anymore...

    • no-name-here 13 hours ago

      I imagine a number of Hacker News members might be devs that haven't dealt with terms like “price discovery” before, so we should all try to show grace.

      • altruios 1 hour ago

        My apologies. I was taught that term in 7th grade econ. I assumed it was common vernacular.

lbreakjai 17 hours ago

I don't really understand the holdup about that specific line? Anthropic publishes the cost per million of tokens, what's arbitrary about looking at your consumption, and doing the math?

Or are you saying that Anthropic is determining that cost per million arbitrarily?

If so, it'd be like asking to explain why things fall on the ground other than through gravity. Companies pick the price they think the market will bear, and adjust based on new information.