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0 pointsetaioinshrdlu8mo ago0 comments

This is wrong because LLMs are cheap enough to run profitably on ads alone (search style or banner ad style) for over 2 years now. And they are getting cheaper over time for the same quality.

It is even cheaper to serve an LLM answer than call a web search API!

Zero chance all the users evaporate unless something much better comes along, or the tech is banned, etc...

0 comments

scubbo8mo ago

> LLMs are cheap enough to run profitably on ads alone

> It is even cheaper to serve an LLM answer than call a web search API

These, uhhhh, these are some rather extraordinary claims. Got some extraordinary evidence to go along with them?

etaioinshrdluOP8mo ago

I've operated a top ~20 LLM service for over 2 years, very comfortably profitably with ads. As for the pure costs you can measure the cost of getting an LLM answer from say, OpenAI, and the equivalent search query from Bing/Google/Exa will cost over 10x more...

johnecheck8mo ago

So you don't have any real info on the costs. The question is what OpenAI's profit margin is here, not yours. The theory is that these costs are subsidized by a flow of money from VCs and big tech as they race.

How cheap is inference, really? What about 'thinking' inference? What are the prices going to be once growth starts to slow and investors start demanding returns on their billions?

2 more replies

clarinificator8mo ago

Profitably covering R&D or profitably using the subsidized models?

1 more reply

throwawayoldie8mo ago

So you're not running an LLM, you're running a service built on top of a subsidized API.

1 more reply

haiku20778mo ago

https://www.snellman.net/blog/archive/2025-06-02-llms-are-ch..., also note the "objections" section

Anecdotally thanks to hardware advancements the locally-run AI software I develop has gotten more than 100x faster in the past year thanks to Moore's law

oblio8mo ago

What hardware advancement? There's hardly any these days... Especially not for this kind of computing.

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0 pointsetaioinshrdlu8mo ago0 comments

This is wrong because LLMs are cheap enough to run profitably on ads alone (search style or banner ad style) for over 2 years now. And they are getting cheaper over time for the same quality.

It is even cheaper to serve an LLM answer than call a web search API!

Zero chance all the users evaporate unless something much better comes along, or the tech is banned, etc...

0 comments

scubbo8mo ago

> LLMs are cheap enough to run profitably on ads alone

> It is even cheaper to serve an LLM answer than call a web search API

These, uhhhh, these are some rather extraordinary claims. Got some extraordinary evidence to go along with them?

etaioinshrdluOP8mo ago

johnecheck8mo ago

How cheap is inference, really? What about 'thinking' inference? What are the prices going to be once growth starts to slow and investors start demanding returns on their billions?

2 more replies

clarinificator8mo ago

Profitably covering R&D or profitably using the subsidized models?

1 more reply

throwawayoldie8mo ago

So you're not running an LLM, you're running a service built on top of a subsidized API.

1 more reply

haiku20778mo ago

https://www.snellman.net/blog/archive/2025-06-02-llms-are-ch..., also note the "objections" section

Anecdotally thanks to hardware advancements the locally-run AI software I develop has gotten more than 100x faster in the past year thanks to Moore's law

oblio8mo ago

What hardware advancement? There's hardly any these days... Especially not for this kind of computing.

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse