Comment by MeetingsBrowser
1 day ago
Wouldn't this mean SOTA model companies are incentivized not to allow subscriptions through third parties?
If all the models are interchangeable at the API layer, wouldn't they be incentivized to add value at the next level up and lock people in there to prevent customers from moving to competitors on a whim.
> If all the models are interchangeable at the API layer, wouldn't they be incentivized to add value at the next level up
Just the other day, a 2016 article was reposted here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46514816] on the 'stack fallacy', where companies who are experts in their domain repeatedly try and fail to 'move up the value chain' by offering higher-level products or services. The fallacy is that these companies underestimate the essential compexities of the higher-level and approach the problem with arrogance.
That would seem to apply here. Why should a model-building company have any unique skill at building higher-level integration?
If their edge comes from having the best model, they should commoditize the complement and make it as easy as possible for everyone to use (and pay for) their model. The standard API allows them to do just this, offering 'free' benefits from community integrations and multi-domain tasks.
If their edge does not come from the model – if the models are interchangeable in performance and not just API – then the company will have deeper problems justifying its existing investments and securing more funding. A moat of high-level features might help plug a few leaks, but this entire field is too new to have the kind of legacy clients that keep old firms like IBM around.
I do not know what that next level is to be honest. Web search, crawler, code execution, etc. can all be easily added on the agent side. And some of the small models are so good when the context is small that being locked into one provider makes no sense. I would rather build a heavy multi-agent solution, using Gemini, GLM, Sonnet, Haiku, GPT, and even use BERT, GlinER and other models for specific tasks. Low cost, no lock-in, still get high quality output.