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Things would be much easier if, instead of “unlimited”, companies simply offered great usage limits. Yes, hoarders would still exist, but their impact would be
by thimabi 1y ago
Things would be much easier if, instead of “unlimited”, companies simply offered great usage limits. Yes, hoarders would still exist, but their impact would be negligible.
Even better: provide a counter displaying both remaining usage available and the quota reset time.
But companies probably earn so much money from the vast majority of users that having good and clear limits would only empower them to actually benefit as much from the product as they can.
- vertoc 1y agoI think the hard part with these ai models is it’s kind of hard to figure out how many tokens you’re going to use, especially as a new user. 4,000 tokens sounds like a lot for instance, but is tiny
- fuzzzerd 1y agoWhile I don't disagree that determining usage is incredibly difficult, it doesn't take a genius to see that something sold "by the million" is something you can expect to to use a lot of.
- thimabi 1y agoIf companies offered any sort of counter, users would quickly understand their usage patterns and adapt accordingly. But users are kept in the dark on purpose, often not knowing how many tokens they use, and sometimes not even knowing what are the token limits.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jollyllama 1y agoIt simply shouldn't be called unlimited, then.
- const_cast 1y agoThis is the crux of the issue. Every company wants the marketing of unlimited, but none of them want the accountability.
- ollybee 1y agoTwo problem with offering usage limits is the real limit you could offer if all users hit it, is low. The users with usage far below the limits feel they are getting a bad deal, compared to if they can't see the limits and they don't hit them, they feel they have "unlimited!".
- Spooky23 1y agoI disagree. People will always hoard a constrained resource. Things like phone service and AI tools find their value when people use them freely. The AI models have a bunch of different consumption models aimed at different types of use. I work at a huge company, and we’re experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for users based on different compliance and business needs. The people using all you can eat products like NotebookLM, Gemini, ChatGPT use them much more on average and do more varied tasks. There is a significant gap between low/normal/high users. People using an interface to a metered API, which offers a defined LLM experience consume fewer resources and perform more narrowly scoped tasks. The cost is similar and satisfaction is about the same.
- OldfieldFund 1y agoAn even more insidious method is selling "lifetime access," offering incredible over-the-top value, then exiting after 2 or 3 years when the momentum starts dropping. These are essentially rug pulls/exit scams. There is no such thing as "unlimited" or "lifetime" unless it's self-hosted.