I use Aider with Openrouter and I keep wondering about the pricing of LLMs after providers decide to be profitable. Can we still afford a model which knows Python, Java and how to disrupt snail biology without poisoning mammals?
> The cost of LLM inference has dropped by a factor of 1,000 in 3 years.
— https://a16z.com/llmflation-llm-inference-cost/
AI startups are not profitable because they are throwing vast sums of money at growth and R&D, not because inference is unaffordable.
You are asking if infinite usage is affordable.
Pet food is not subsidized in my country nor the EU. If any countries do subsidize pet food, they are the exception. Maybe the US? Pet food is often manufactured from the waste of other processes, including the human food industry, but that is not a subsidiary.
This also goes to a personal issue that why would you feed your pet a waste product. My dog gets food I cook for him just like myself. There are tons of crock pot recipes online for safe cheap high quality dog food.
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Think of it like this: imagine if lactose-free or gluten-free food could be bought only with a prescription. Sadly the prices are already high as it is for gluten-free, but I would rather not get into the reasons here. :)
My girlfriend (LA, US) just left 1k USD on 2 visits to the vet with her cat, for some cheap ass antibiotics, and a "specific prescription-only food". Crazy. All that would have been "free" (not quite, but you know) or at a very low cost for humans around here, in Europe. Not the gluten-free food though!
</rant>