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I would probably try to integrate the Wolfram Alpha API some way into my AI programmer startup aidev.codes if I could afford their pricing. Says you have to com

by ilaksh 4y ago

I would probably try to integrate the Wolfram Alpha API some way into my AI programmer startup aidev.codes if I could afford their pricing. Says you have to commit to $1000 per year. I certainly can't/won't just pay $1000 up front and I don't know if it will really work without trying it for awhile. If they took off the minimum commitment it would open this up to a lot more people. Believe it or not, there are programmers out there who don't have much money who really can/are building startups. Also the Contact Us thing is a red flag for me. https://products.wolframalpha.com/api/pricing https://products.wolframalpha.com/api/pricing

hutzlibu 4y ago
"Also the Contact Us thing is a red flag for me." Why is that a red flag and not something you see as potentially finding a custom solution to your need?
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  If someone is wary to ask, they probably can't afford it
- Enginerrrd 4y ago
  Not OP, but I feel similarly and for me it's because the information assymmetry is a deliberate way to give advantage to the seller. I also perceive deliberate lack of transparency as dishonest and exploitative. If you can't give me a price upfront, I probably don't want to do business with you. That may not be entirely fair, but that is my perception I also don't like doing business with people I can't trust on a handshake. Contracts IMO should really only formalize the implicit understanding of expected boundaries to be followed by both parties. If you're the type of person to seek advantage when an unexpected situation comes up, I don't really want to do business with you.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    "If you can't give me a price upfront, I probably don't want to do business with you." I don't understand. They give very clear prices for various use cases and for everything else, there is the "contact us" button. Which is quite common as far as I know.
- Filligree 4y ago
  Usually it means there are no cheap options for home experimentation.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    But here they seem to have that option avaiable: "free non-commercial development account" But yes, they are clear they don't want to do low volume buisness, once you actually do buisness, which is a shame, for those who start small, but I would not rule out the possibility, that they might arrange for a "try it out".
AlotOfReading 4y ago
All of their products are like this. It's just a Wolfram thing and I doubt they'll ever change. It's a shame because I would genuinely love to use their products, but the upfront costs and insanely difficult licensing mean that most people never learn the software at home, companies refuse to use it internally, and nothing ever gets built.
- janalsncm 4y ago
  It doesn’t make sense at all. Why choose to be insanely expensive? I guess by the time you’ve signed a contract there’s a lot of sunk cost ($1000 to be exact) but I can’t understand that strategy long-term.
  - SilverBirch 4y ago
    Back to the original comment: >If they took off the minimum commitment it would open this up to a lot more people. That's literally the point. They don't want a lot more people, if you price something such that anyone can pick it up and try it you're going to have to put a lot of effort into support and fielding queries from these small customers and some businesses just aren't interested in that. Yeah, maybe it turns out that one of those thousands of small customers turns into a unicorn, but there are plenty of businesses that just don't care. They don't want the fuss. They want extremely large customers who they can sign large support and development contracts with.
    - AlotOfReading 4y ago
      That exists, but I don't think it's the whole story in this case. Wolfram (both the man and the company) simply doesn't appreciate the value of user-contributions and decentralized communities of practitioners. They've published blog statements defending their model [0] and explaining how everyone who wants anything different is actually misunderstanding their value prop [1]. Wolfram also makes no meaningful attempts at cultivating any sort of internal desire to use their products. I'm pretty sure we'd have to pry Matlab from the cold, dead hands of our controls people. We terminated our (~6 figure?) Wolfram contact because less than a dozen people used the products, Wolfram support was non-existent, and IT put their foot down on maintaining the license server. [0] https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-open-source-a-dozen-reasons/ https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-op... [1] https://blog.wolfram.com/2021/11/30/six-reasons-why-the-wolfram-language-is-like-open-source/ https://blog.wolfram.com/2021/11/30/six-reasons-why-the-wolf...
elashri 4y ago
And this for the simple API. For example, id you want what the people here are interested and playing here here you will need the full API. This needs a 10,000 commitment upfront.
schappim 4y ago
I've thought about doing this, but it's as you've pointed out cost prohibitive. However, you can install the Wolfram engine for free on a Raspberry Pi and make calls to Wolfram through the command line interface. This could be a great solution, but the API calls to WolframAlpha are slow, which might affect the system's performance. It could still be used for out-of-band systems.

by ilaksh 4y ago

hutzlibu 4y ago

"Also the Contact Us thing is a red flag for me." Why is that a red flag and not something you see as potentially finding a custom solution to your need?

nextaccountic 4y ago
If someone is wary to ask, they probably can't afford it
Enginerrrd 4y ago
Not OP, but I feel similarly and for me it's because the information assymmetry is a deliberate way to give advantage to the seller. I also perceive deliberate lack of transparency as dishonest and exploitative. If you can't give me a price upfront, I probably don't want to do business with you. That may not be entirely fair, but that is my perception I also don't like doing business with people I can't trust on a handshake. Contracts IMO should really only formalize the implicit understanding of expected boundaries to be followed by both parties. If you're the type of person to seek advantage when an unexpected situation comes up, I don't really want to do business with you.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "If you can't give me a price upfront, I probably don't want to do business with you." I don't understand. They give very clear prices for various use cases and for everything else, there is the "contact us" button. Which is quite common as far as I know.
Filligree 4y ago
Usually it means there are no cheap options for home experimentation.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  But here they seem to have that option avaiable: "free non-commercial development account" But yes, they are clear they don't want to do low volume buisness, once you actually do buisness, which is a shame, for those who start small, but I would not rule out the possibility, that they might arrange for a "try it out".

AlotOfReading 4y ago

All of their products are like this. It's just a Wolfram thing and I doubt they'll ever change. It's a shame because I would genuinely love to use their products, but the upfront costs and insanely difficult licensing mean that most people never learn the software at home, companies refuse to use it internally, and nothing ever gets built.

janalsncm 4y ago
It doesn’t make sense at all. Why choose to be insanely expensive? I guess by the time you’ve signed a contract there’s a lot of sunk cost ($1000 to be exact) but I can’t understand that strategy long-term.
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  Back to the original comment: >If they took off the minimum commitment it would open this up to a lot more people. That's literally the point. They don't want a lot more people, if you price something such that anyone can pick it up and try it you're going to have to put a lot of effort into support and fielding queries from these small customers and some businesses just aren't interested in that. Yeah, maybe it turns out that one of those thousands of small customers turns into a unicorn, but there are plenty of businesses that just don't care. They don't want the fuss. They want extremely large customers who they can sign large support and development contracts with.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    That exists, but I don't think it's the whole story in this case. Wolfram (both the man and the company) simply doesn't appreciate the value of user-contributions and decentralized communities of practitioners. They've published blog statements defending their model [0] and explaining how everyone who wants anything different is actually misunderstanding their value prop [1]. Wolfram also makes no meaningful attempts at cultivating any sort of internal desire to use their products. I'm pretty sure we'd have to pry Matlab from the cold, dead hands of our controls people. We terminated our (~6 figure?) Wolfram contact because less than a dozen people used the products, Wolfram support was non-existent, and IT put their foot down on maintaining the license server. [0] https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-open-source-a-dozen-reasons/ https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-op... [1] https://blog.wolfram.com/2021/11/30/six-reasons-why-the-wolfram-language-is-like-open-source/ https://blog.wolfram.com/2021/11/30/six-reasons-why-the-wolf...

elashri 4y ago

And this for the simple API. For example, id you want what the people here are interested and playing here here you will need the full API. This needs a 10,000 commitment upfront.

schappim 4y ago

I've thought about doing this, but it's as you've pointed out cost prohibitive. However, you can install the Wolfram engine for free on a Raspberry Pi and make calls to Wolfram through the command line interface. This could be a great solution, but the API calls to WolframAlpha are slow, which might affect the system's performance. It could still be used for out-of-band systems.