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Comment by dpweb | Hacker News Reader

Usage is sus but 500 minus tax write off to even a one person business that makes 100-500k yr. not crazy at all - kinda expected.

Worth it? Huge YMMV. I'd expect a $1000 sub next.

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  Cosmo Kramer: It's a write-off for them.
  Jerry:        How is it a write-off?
  Cosmo Kramer: They just write it off.
  Jerry:        Write it off what?
  Cosmo Kramer: Jerry, all these big companies, they write off everything.
  Jerry:        You don't even know what a write-off is. 
  Cosmo Kramer: Do you?
  Jerry:        No, I don't.
  Cosmo Kramer: But they do, and they're the ones writing it off.

Edit to be fair: the "500 minus tax write off" comment does make sense but often people overstates the benefits of writing things off.

Hah we both thought of dialogue play - figured it would make for an interesting conversation.

Lol, I could hear this vividly in Kramer's voice in my mind. Not everything in the show aged well, but it's still a fun watch.

I had no idea that was originally from seinfeld! The Schitts Creek version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCP27_vquxQ&t=26s

haha one of my favorites!

My take - the $500/month is likely similar to the $200/month plan (albeit with Astra Ultrafast that consumes tokens ultrafast).

Or maybe it gives you just a little bit more tokens than older $200/month plan for plausible deniability:

    Maybe me: “you’re charging $500/month for what was $200/month earlier”

    Maybe OAI: “no we’re not!! You get *more* tokens than the older $200/month plan and did you hear, you get Astra Ultrafast access!”

    Maybe me: “oh really? How many more tokens??”

    Maybe OAI: “I’m sorry we can no longer share that information, it’s confidential. National security and all…”

More than an hour after I wrote this, OAI sent an email sounding eerily close to my approximation:

    - $500 plan comes with not 20x,
      but 25x allowance!
    - also Astro Ultraspeed
    - $200 pulled down to 10x quota

Things I hadn’t anticipated:

    - one time ~62,000 credit
      top-up ($2,500 API call 
      value)
    - 5 hour quota limits removed

The removal of 5 hourly quotas can negate some reduction in token allowance. Especially relevant for those of us working in 2-3 day bursts (such as weekends). Because these folks weren’t using their full weekly quota before, they already had a decent buffer.

Maybe OAI thinks people are creating new unnecessary work to use their allowance completely. Well they aren’t entirely wrong. But the experimentation has been useful in letting us discover new use-cases, and to develop and flex our agentic muscles.

I've talked to VP at my company and we both agreed $1000 for the time saved, is still 'worth it'.

Dev salaries are high and devs often have to realign buttons or change colors. We are not always working on complex ideas.

I rewrote a big piece of software from scratch....it had 0 docs. Documenting of classes and flow took me weeks. Complete rewrite took almost 2 years. I am confident that with AI I would be able to get this done in a few months.

I bet it's worth it, for him.

Gets to put you under pressure to deliver more while paying you less. A few months you say, why not weeks? I'm sure the latest model can do it.

Also, forget about those "easy" ideas, if you are not on the verge of burnout every day you might as well not be working.

I mean, it's a good deal for the boss, but I also wouldn't want to waste two years of my life doing something I could do in a couple months or weeks, would you? That's not a good use of my life, regardless of whether someone's willing to pay me.

Half (or more?) of the point of writing docs is for you to understand the system better.

You can also right off actual $6000 hardware

Not 100% in the first year (where I live). By the time it’s depreciated, it’s time to replace. Subscriptions are 100% deductible in the year you pay them.

You might be able to use the accelerated depreciation schedule which is 100% first year

Since 2025 in the U.S. computer hardware qualifies for 100% depreciation in its first year of service.

I'd rather use the fancy models while absurd valuations are subsidising them and then pick up a couple grand worth of their old hardware in a few years when they're eol.

M5 ultra wait time just went from 4 to 8 weeks over the weekend. Can't wait that long.

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