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The question is specifically about the marginal cost of the inferencing part exclusively. Not the R&D spend. AFAIK, there has never been a statement on that from neither OpenAI nor Anthropic. What it actually costs to serve one more token determines wether it is "subsidized" at a certain price point. That it is sold for more elsewhere is not evidence.

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How would that number help at all or change the discussion? Is R&D not a real expense?

I mean, this argument would have merit if they built something that they're going to monetize for decades, but cutting edge models now grow obsolete in a 6 month time window.

There is zero financial analysis where they aren't massively subsidizing the subscriptions, and people have to invent ignorant "oh just ignore most of the cost of providing the product" to try to pretend there is.

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