undefined | Better HN

0 pointssharkjacobs2y ago0 comments

Here’s an anecdote. I was subscribed to ChatGPT Plus for a while, to get access to GPT4.

I stopped subscribing after after I got GPT4 API access because I developed a little personal app which used the OpenAI API to just read and write directly from plain text files and that suits my workflow better than the ChatGPT website.

But it sucks because I’m constantly thinking about how much I’m using, and how many tokens I’m putting into my query, because each API call costs me money. It was way nicer just paying a flat fee and using it “as much as I want”, even though this actually costs me way less because I use don’t use $20USD worth of API calls in a month, even with GPT4.

It would be a nightmare to use Reddit if it cost money to scroll down or post a comment. On the other hand, that might actually be a good disincentive to help me spend less time on it.

0 comments

californical2y ago

I had the same reaction when Kagi search changed their pricing to a fixed number 1,000 searches per month for $10. I couldn’t imagine trying to use search thinking “is this one worth searching for?”

… I now pay $25 for their unlimited option even though I probably use less than 1k searches per month anyways

jackson14422y ago

Good news on that- they’re experimenting with lower cost unlimited right now; people who had an annual membership before the switch are back to unlimited searches for now.

dymk2y ago

Which is why when designing pricing "per use" pricing models, prefer something like $0.0001 per search, or $15/month, whichever is less in a month

downWidOutaFite2y ago

If I was designing such an app I would prominently display your ongoing monthly costs and add a budget/limit feature.

sharkjacobsOP2y ago

My problem isn’t that I’m worried I’m spending too much, I know for a fact that I’m spending less than I did on ChatGPT Plus, I can check my usage regularly, and I do.

My problem is that before I send each query, I think to myself “is this worth a fraction of a penny?” and, when I have a bunch of follow up queries, I think “the previous query/response history is getting pretty big, should I trim some of it before I send my next query?” or “Should I skimp on this one and just use GPT3.5?”

brewdad2y ago

This is the same reason I can't ever see microtransactions for news sites gaining traction. While I can't afford to subscribe to every news site I would like to, I also don't want to have to decide whether every news article I might read is going to be worth my penny before I read it. So I stick with the status quo of subscribing to a couple of key sites and skipping out when I hit a paywall. It's suboptimal for both sides but I can't see pay per article working any better realistically.

ckolkey2y ago

I completely take your point, and would _love_ some kind of negative externality to keep from scrolling to much. I'd see that as a positive.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse