Comment by obblekk
14 hours ago
This is the first time in recent memory that software has had high variable costs so the surprise at these rules is understandable.
In this case, a the difference in context cache hit rate between openclaw and antigravity.
For example if openclaw starts every message with the current time hh:mm:ss at the top of the context window, followed by the full convo history, it would have a cache hit rate if ~0. Simply moving the updated time to each new message incrementally would increase hit rate to over 90%. Idk if openclaw does this but there’s many many optimizations like this. And worse, thrashing the cache has non linear effects on the server as more and more users’ cached contexts get evicted from cache due to high cardinality. The cost to serve difference could be >10x.
Google is the furthest behind on coding agent adoption and has all the incentives to allow off policy use to grow demand. But it would probably be better to design their own optimized openclaw and serve that for free than let any unoptimized requests in.
It's a fair point, but I think people are thinking too much about 'cost' and 'subsidies' and just the fact that everyone is so compute stretched.
While it's sort of the same thing, I think it's much more a symptom of not enough compute vs some 'dump cheap tokens' on the market strategy.
One related thought I had was that given OpenAI is the only one _not_ doing this of the big3, it probably indicates they have a lot more spare compute.
It doesn't make sense to me that given the absolutely brutal competition any of these companies would block use of 3rd party apps unless they had to. They clearly have enough cash, so I don't think it's about money - I think it's that an indicator that Google and Anthropic are really struggling with keeping up with demand. Given Anthropics reliability issues last week this does not surprise me.
I agree with all this.
I would add though that many are also being caught up in antispam efforts.
I.e. that for every legimate OpenClaw user doing something trivial with their account misusing the sub. There is probably 10x using it to send spam emails and spam comments.
I suspect from googles perspective some of these people are just a rounding error.
That said I use API where I should and the sub in the first party apps. Perhaps I'm too much of a goody two shoes but AI already feels such an overwhelming value prop for me I don't care.
That said I think you're right in that money matters here but I think the subs as they intend people to use them is hugely profitable i.e. the people doing 10 chats per work day and a few in the evening but paying £20 per month.
> One related thought I had was that given OpenAI is the only one _not_ doing this of the big3, it probably indicates they have a lot more spare compute.
Or, pessimistically, it could indicate they’re burning cash hoping the subsidized access will eventually result in someone giving them a product idea they can build and resell at a profit.
If they let *claw (or third party coding agents, or whatever) run for six more months and in those months figure out how to sell a safe substitute and then cut off access, maybe it will have been worth it.
>This is the first time in recent memory that software has had high variable costs
Running software has always had a variable cost.
Why should I be surprised if [cloud provider] were upset that I were running a thousand free tier servers? Or utilizing any paid plan at all to somehow effect utilizations far exceeding the clearly documented limitations of my plan?
Using the torrent network protocol on a VPN that doesn't support it, or fork bombing an email server, or using that one popular free video hosting service to host nigh unlimitted arbritrary data, or hosting content that is illegal to the server operator regardless of its legality to me, etc, etc, etc
It's all the same thing: TOS violation.
No one is being forced to use these products without reading and signing the terms of service. In this particular instance, you can even use the free version of the provided service to analyze the terms of service for the paid plan if you were really so lazy.
I really am genuinely confounded as to why people are so regularly surprised that they can't just do whatever they please with proprietary solutions. Like "oh what do you mean I can't lie about the date of my injury in order to get it covered by insurance?".
It's almost like people just assume that everything ever works exactly as they would deam it to (in their benefit), rather than the much more sane assumption that every company is going to be naturally inclined to cater to their own benefit before the users'.