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Metering in software is usually terrible. It discourages experimentation and use. It also adds significant mental overhead when it comes to using something. On

Metering in software is usually terrible. It discourages experimentation and use. It also adds significant mental overhead when it comes to using something. One can imagine this mental overhead when using Canva or Photoshop. But if evrry app was like that the complexity would rise exponentially. Metering leads to reaching local optimal states at best, and makes it very difficult to reach a global optimal state. There is very little marginal cost when software is concerned so metering isn’t even reflective of the costs of using a product. However, this isn’t currently true of AI. AI has significant marginal costs so metering probably better aligns with the expenses, but metering is so bad for other reasons that most companies are choosing to forgo the “reflective of costs” benefit and just charge flat prices anyways.

darby_nine 2y ago
> There is very little marginal cost when software is concerned so metering isn’t even reflective of the costs of using a product. Well that's my point, isn't it? Neither are subscriptions. The transaction is presented as for a service, but you're really paying for a workforce that might not be providing any marginal value to you at all. > Metering leads to reaching local optimal states at best, and makes it very difficult to reach a global optimal state. I don't see how subscriptions are more likely to get us there. Certainly closed-source software (or paying for access to a closed-source service) makes it much harder to find globally optimal states—we're reinventing the wheel over and over and over again, which is tremendously inefficient and presumably would be a problem you'd expect market forces/technological progression to correct.
- latexr 2y ago
  > Well that's my point, isn't it? Neither are subscriptions. > (…) > I don't see how subscriptions are more likely to get us there. Your whole response hinges on the assumption that the person you’re replying to is defending subscriptions, yet they haven’t even hinted at that being the case. They explained what they see as the problems with metering and nothing else, nowhere in their response do I see an argument in favour of subscriptions.
atoav 2y ago
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darby_nine 2y ago

> There is very little marginal cost when software is concerned so metering isn’t even reflective of the costs of using a product. Well that's my point, isn't it? Neither are subscriptions. The transaction is presented as for a service, but you're really paying for a workforce that might not be providing any marginal value to you at all. > Metering leads to reaching local optimal states at best, and makes it very difficult to reach a global optimal state. I don't see how subscriptions are more likely to get us there. Certainly closed-source software (or paying for access to a closed-source service) makes it much harder to find globally optimal states—we're reinventing the wheel over and over and over again, which is tremendously inefficient and presumably would be a problem you'd expect market forces/technological progression to correct.

latexr 2y ago
> Well that's my point, isn't it? Neither are subscriptions. > (…) > I don't see how subscriptions are more likely to get us there. Your whole response hinges on the assumption that the person you’re replying to is defending subscriptions, yet they haven’t even hinted at that being the case. They explained what they see as the problems with metering and nothing else, nowhere in their response do I see an argument in favour of subscriptions.

atoav 2y ago

Welcome to The Hammer™ OS®! Your privacy is valuable to us. The Hammer™ is billed for every use — the amount we bill you depends on your class within The Hammer™ Club membership system (ask our sales experts for more information). Welcome to the future of tools with The Hammer™!