4 ms·

> ? Claude, ChatGPT, etc are heinously expensive for tiny benefits lmao. Local + efficient is clearly the future Corporate America is where the money is, and c

by ericmay 6mo ago

> ? Claude, ChatGPT, etc are heinously expensive for tiny benefits lmao. Local + efficient is clearly the future Corporate America is where the money is, and corporate America will dictate what products are successful by virtue of spend. Individuals aren't going to be paying $100s or $1000s/month en masse for these models but businesses will be. Being local and efficient isn't that important at this stage but even so as American companies continue to scale and invest they'll be able to make those models more local and efficient if the market wants it. Sort of like how you had a big, giant desktop computer and now you've got a super computer in your phone which is in your pocket. Going straight to "local and efficient" means going straight to being behind because at some point, perhaps now even, the local and efficient model won't be able to keep up. For some reason people think that they somehow know something that Google or Nvidia or whoever, with hundreds of billions of dollars of real money at stake don't already know and it's both amusing and bizarre to see this play out again and again in off-hand comments like "lol tiny benefits". You buy an iPhone even though the cheap-o Wal-Mart Android phone for $100 "does the same thing". Except that in this case the Android phone just puts you out of business while those spending big money for "tiny benefits" beat you in the market.

ForHackernews 6mo ago
> You buy an iPhone even though the cheap-o Wal-Mart Android phone for $100 "does the same thing". People buy iPhones because of status signalling and network effects, neither of which appears to apply to AI model choice. LLMs are already rapidly on the way to being interchangeable commodities.
- ericmay 6mo ago
  No they don't, it's not 2008. Anybody off the street can get an iPhone or a free iPhone with a mobile plan. They're commodity products. Even homeless people have them. To the extent LLMs are commodity products you're right (so far), but that is limited to the main model providers, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, &c. with interoperability on cloud platform providers and other technology providers like an Apple offering you a choice of LLM with Siri or something. If you want to suggest that some other model is in the same bucket as those primary 3, it goes back to the crappy, cheap phone analogy which is accurate. Yea you can make calls with it, but you make calls better with an iPhone.
  - throwaway27448 6mo ago
    > free iPhone with a mobile plan I get your point but in what sense is that "free"? What mobile plan giving you an iphone doesn't come with explicit debt?
    - ericmay 6mo ago
      Here's an example from 2025 with a major US carrier - Verizon: https://tech.yahoo.com/phones/deals/articles/want-free-iphone-17-without-153514132.html https://tech.yahoo.com/phones/deals/articles/want-free-iphon... They run various schemes like this all the time, you can also trade in your existing phone a lot of times for pretty favorable terms. I've traded in phones that were a few years old and gotten $1000+ for them, especially when switching providers.
      - vel0city 6mo ago
        Verizon's "free" iPhone deal is you pay for the phone up front and then receive a bill credit. Here's the fine print from one of those deals: $729.99 purchase on device payment or at retail price required. New line req'd. Unlimited Welcome, Unlimited Plus or Unlimited Ultimate plans required. Less $730 promo credit applied to account over 36 mos; promo credit ends if eligibility requirements are no longer met; 0% APR.Taxes & fees may apply. Credits will appear on your Verizon Wireless bill. https://www.verizon.com/shop/online/free-5g-phones/ https://www.verizon.com/shop/online/free-5g-phones/
        ericmay 6mo ago
        I don’t know or care much about the specific details but the article was written in 2025. Carriers run deals and give away iPhones or close enough to free or cheap that quibbling about the details is irrelevant. If you think the iPhone is a status symbol you’re just wrong.
        vel0city 6mo ago
        I'm not the one arguing iPhones are only status symbols. If anything, if I only had the money to spend on a single computing device there's a good chance I'd go for an iPhone due to excellent durability, typically long support timelines, lots of extremely cheap accessories available, high chance of low cost serviceability compared to other devices. There's also a pretty good used marketplace for such devices so picking up one used on the cheap and still getting a few years of use out of it is likely. I'd likely try and stretch to get that device instead of settling for a cheap $100 phone that will be a total piece of junk and end up being my only actual computing device. I'm just pointing out the statement: > What mobile plan giving you an iphone doesn't come with explicit debt? isn't invalidated by some Yahoo article pushing a marketing promo that when you actually do the math and read the fine print its not really a "free" phone, its always some form of debt or bill credit or something along those lines that makes the phone "free". You're still paying for the phone in the end if you read the fine print. In the end one commits to spending several hundred dollars over 36 months or whatever or you pay up front and they give you bill credits if you keep the plan.
throwaway27448 6mo ago
Corporate america is the past. Momentum is carrying capital out of the country. Pay attention to rate of change.
- ericmay 6mo ago
  What source are you using for your claim that capital is flowing out of the country? I'm curious to read more about it.
  - throwaway27448 6mo ago
    I don't think that's a particularly bold claim after thirty straight years of moving supply chains overseas. Capital is, inherently, the means of production. The world where we could compete is gone.
    - ericmay 6mo ago
      Capital is not the means of production. Capital is capital. If I have a few million dollars in my bank account I don’t all of a sudden have a factory. Remember from economics class you need capital, labor, and the means of production. Capital inflows are different from manufacturing outflows. The US has historically imported capital which is part of why we have such a large trade imbalance. I’d encourage you to do some more digging here. > The world where we could compete is gone. Sigh no that’s just not true at all. We compete hard and fast all day everyday, economy is growing and will continue to do so, and no amount of leftist doomer, Chinese, Iranian, or Russian propaganda changes those facts.
      - throwaway27448 6mo ago
        > I have a few million dollars in my bank account I don’t all of a sudden have a factory. No but money only has value because of a product of the human labor and production capacity it refers to. Money is not capital, it is a reference to/legal coercion of capital > We compete hard and fast all day everyday Sir have you ever been to the us? Lmao. We are only competitive in the industry of white collar work (financial/artisanal services), an industry that capital is actively gutting

by ericmay 6mo ago

ForHackernews 6mo ago

> You buy an iPhone even though the cheap-o Wal-Mart Android phone for $100 "does the same thing". People buy iPhones because of status signalling and network effects, neither of which appears to apply to AI model choice. LLMs are already rapidly on the way to being interchangeable commodities.

ericmay 6mo ago
No they don't, it's not 2008. Anybody off the street can get an iPhone or a free iPhone with a mobile plan. They're commodity products. Even homeless people have them. To the extent LLMs are commodity products you're right (so far), but that is limited to the main model providers, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, &c. with interoperability on cloud platform providers and other technology providers like an Apple offering you a choice of LLM with Siri or something. If you want to suggest that some other model is in the same bucket as those primary 3, it goes back to the crappy, cheap phone analogy which is accurate. Yea you can make calls with it, but you make calls better with an iPhone.
- throwaway27448 6mo ago
  > free iPhone with a mobile plan I get your point but in what sense is that "free"? What mobile plan giving you an iphone doesn't come with explicit debt?
  - ericmay 6mo ago
    Here's an example from 2025 with a major US carrier - Verizon: https://tech.yahoo.com/phones/deals/articles/want-free-iphone-17-without-153514132.html https://tech.yahoo.com/phones/deals/articles/want-free-iphon... They run various schemes like this all the time, you can also trade in your existing phone a lot of times for pretty favorable terms. I've traded in phones that were a few years old and gotten $1000+ for them, especially when switching providers.
    - vel0city 6mo ago
      Verizon's "free" iPhone deal is you pay for the phone up front and then receive a bill credit. Here's the fine print from one of those deals: $729.99 purchase on device payment or at retail price required. New line req'd. Unlimited Welcome, Unlimited Plus or Unlimited Ultimate plans required. Less $730 promo credit applied to account over 36 mos; promo credit ends if eligibility requirements are no longer met; 0% APR.Taxes & fees may apply. Credits will appear on your Verizon Wireless bill. https://www.verizon.com/shop/online/free-5g-phones/ https://www.verizon.com/shop/online/free-5g-phones/
      - ericmay 6mo ago
        I don’t know or care much about the specific details but the article was written in 2025. Carriers run deals and give away iPhones or close enough to free or cheap that quibbling about the details is irrelevant. If you think the iPhone is a status symbol you’re just wrong.
        vel0city 6mo ago
        I'm not the one arguing iPhones are only status symbols. If anything, if I only had the money to spend on a single computing device there's a good chance I'd go for an iPhone due to excellent durability, typically long support timelines, lots of extremely cheap accessories available, high chance of low cost serviceability compared to other devices. There's also a pretty good used marketplace for such devices so picking up one used on the cheap and still getting a few years of use out of it is likely. I'd likely try and stretch to get that device instead of settling for a cheap $100 phone that will be a total piece of junk and end up being my only actual computing device. I'm just pointing out the statement: > What mobile plan giving you an iphone doesn't come with explicit debt? isn't invalidated by some Yahoo article pushing a marketing promo that when you actually do the math and read the fine print its not really a "free" phone, its always some form of debt or bill credit or something along those lines that makes the phone "free". You're still paying for the phone in the end if you read the fine print. In the end one commits to spending several hundred dollars over 36 months or whatever or you pay up front and they give you bill credits if you keep the plan.

throwaway27448 6mo ago

Corporate america is the past. Momentum is carrying capital out of the country. Pay attention to rate of change.

ericmay 6mo ago
What source are you using for your claim that capital is flowing out of the country? I'm curious to read more about it.
- throwaway27448 6mo ago
  I don't think that's a particularly bold claim after thirty straight years of moving supply chains overseas. Capital is, inherently, the means of production. The world where we could compete is gone.
  - ericmay 6mo ago
    Capital is not the means of production. Capital is capital. If I have a few million dollars in my bank account I don’t all of a sudden have a factory. Remember from economics class you need capital, labor, and the means of production. Capital inflows are different from manufacturing outflows. The US has historically imported capital which is part of why we have such a large trade imbalance. I’d encourage you to do some more digging here. > The world where we could compete is gone. Sigh no that’s just not true at all. We compete hard and fast all day everyday, economy is growing and will continue to do so, and no amount of leftist doomer, Chinese, Iranian, or Russian propaganda changes those facts.
    - throwaway27448 6mo ago
      > I have a few million dollars in my bank account I don’t all of a sudden have a factory. No but money only has value because of a product of the human labor and production capacity it refers to. Money is not capital, it is a reference to/legal coercion of capital > We compete hard and fast all day everyday Sir have you ever been to the us? Lmao. We are only competitive in the industry of white collar work (financial/artisanal services), an industry that capital is actively gutting