For comparison, I am currently at 6.6B tokens, 95% of monthly quota on a 10$ command code plan, mostly using DeepSeek flash 4.1, or some of the free models for easier tasks.
> always instinctively followed the generosity path
> experienced that when customers are delighted and that when frictions are removed
Charlie Munger:
When other companies find ways to save money, they turn it into profit. [Costco] passes it on to customers. It’s almost a religious duty. [They] sacrifice short-term profits for long-term success”.
> talking people out of trying to prematurely squeeze out every last penny?
I'd say this is a wrong framing. It isn't the people; it is the systems & environs they are in, the incentives they operate under.
Economists have a term they call "willingness-to-pay", using which some business might optimize for "consumer surplus" (low price), some for "producer surplus" (high margin).
You should read the essay. It is mostly about pivoting towards an outsized outcomes for founders & leveraging various avenues available to their advantage.
Because when investors allocate resources based on the ability of those resources to generate a profitable return you end up with an increasing volume of resources being used in the service of fulfilling the needs of a decreasing number of people.
Investors are, by definition, the people who control resource allocation in a capitalist economy. Making investors less powerful is the same thing as making the economy less capitalist, which is obviously bad.
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