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I think both can be true - they're losing money on the API and they're still charging too much. Which is really where the music stops for American AI investment. I also use K3 now and its perfectly capable for the development work I'm doing. I don't shed any tears for OpenAI or Anthropic.

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API are not subsidized. We know this is true from the existence of independent inference providers (a lot of which are crypto companies that would otherwise just be mining if inference weren't actually profitable).

Those providers are VC-funded, they don’t have the leeway to pivot away from AI. I would be interested in some examples though.

I don't think the rando providers like Novita, Phala, AkashML, etc., which frequently provide discounts to compete for traffic, are VC-funded. They have to actually make money to stay afloat.

Any public company providing inference who’s claimed its profitability in a way they risk legal penalties if untrue?

(Makes sense to me, just curious about this additional piece.)

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