4 ms·

That's what these providers want as well, but from the other side. They want to know that a customer won't be able to eat more than certain number of servings,

by _flux 6mo ago

That's what these providers want as well, but from the other side. They want to know that a customer won't be able to eat more than certain number of servings, as they need to pay for each of those servings. It works out even if some customers are able to eat a lot, because people on average have a certain limit. The limits of computers are much higher.

jimkleiber 6mo ago
Fair, and I think openclaw and all the orchestrators are having agents maxing out the plans. So maybe they figure out a new tier that is agent-run vs human-run. Agents are much more insatiable, whereas humans have a limit. Not sure if it'd be possible to split between those two different modes, but I think that might address the appetite issue better.
- _flux 6mo ago
  I think it would be impossible to find the price point for a monthly subscribtion that would both be profitable to a provider, as well as attractive to the customer. If anything, as the customers would now be paying necessarily even a higher amount for agentic use, they'd make certain they'd be using the agent as effectively as they can, meaning it would be even more costly for the provider. Pay-per-token is really the only way it can work. If some kind of fixed monthly price is desirable, then there should be a quota the user can assign, and then the agent could e.g. slow itself down by 50% when 50% of the quota is spent, another 50% at 75%, etc, to make it last longer.. As a side thought, I wonder how it could affect an agent's behavior if the information of this token usage/limit was brought to it..
  - jimkleiber 6mo ago
    Ironically in chatting with Gemini, helped me realize that telecoms have often solved this problem of unlimited usage with rate/speed limiting. If one goes over 10GB or whatnot of data, then the speed drops from 5G to 3G, and data remains unlimited. I wonder if there could be something like that, maybe even a progressive rate limiting, where after a certain number of tokens or another metric of use, then the speed slows down a LOT. Not saying that I would love that as a consumer, as I'd prefer this all-you-can eat, unlimited data plan, but I wonder if that would be a compromise that could work, as it seems to have worked OK with the telecom space. edit: the nerd in me loves the irony of me making the above comment and then later seeing your username as flux :-)

by _flux 6mo ago

jimkleiber 6mo ago

Fair, and I think openclaw and all the orchestrators are having agents maxing out the plans. So maybe they figure out a new tier that is agent-run vs human-run. Agents are much more insatiable, whereas humans have a limit. Not sure if it'd be possible to split between those two different modes, but I think that might address the appetite issue better.

_flux 6mo ago
I think it would be impossible to find the price point for a monthly subscribtion that would both be profitable to a provider, as well as attractive to the customer. If anything, as the customers would now be paying necessarily even a higher amount for agentic use, they'd make certain they'd be using the agent as effectively as they can, meaning it would be even more costly for the provider. Pay-per-token is really the only way it can work. If some kind of fixed monthly price is desirable, then there should be a quota the user can assign, and then the agent could e.g. slow itself down by 50% when 50% of the quota is spent, another 50% at 75%, etc, to make it last longer.. As a side thought, I wonder how it could affect an agent's behavior if the information of this token usage/limit was brought to it..
- jimkleiber 6mo ago
  Ironically in chatting with Gemini, helped me realize that telecoms have often solved this problem of unlimited usage with rate/speed limiting. If one goes over 10GB or whatnot of data, then the speed drops from 5G to 3G, and data remains unlimited. I wonder if there could be something like that, maybe even a progressive rate limiting, where after a certain number of tokens or another metric of use, then the speed slows down a LOT. Not saying that I would love that as a consumer, as I'd prefer this all-you-can eat, unlimited data plan, but I wonder if that would be a compromise that could work, as it seems to have worked OK with the telecom space. edit: the nerd in me loves the irony of me making the above comment and then later seeing your username as flux :-)