Comment by DrewADesign
12 hours ago
Surely that’s subsidized?
A lot of people in the Silicon Valley area spend that much ($6/day) on coffee. What they don’t realize is how out of touch they are in thinking makes sense for the rest of the fucking world. $180/mo is about 5% of the median US per capita income. It’s not going to pick your kids up from school, do your taxes, fix your car, or do the dishes. It’s going to download movies and call restaurants and play music. It’s a hobby, high-touch leisure assistant that costs a lot of money.
They aren't selling it to the median US earner. They're selling it (and trying to generate FOMO) to the out of touch people so that it becomes so entrenched that the median earner will be forced to use it in some capacity through their interaction with businesses, schools, the government, etc.
The customer they’re picturing in their mind’s eye is obvious. The out of touch part comes in when you look at the size of that market— not big— with how likely that market is to grow drastically— not very— and the amount they’re investing in building the product— all of everything plus a bazillion. With what they’ve invested, if they end up with an institutional market the likes of Microsoft split up among the winners, they fucked up.
The economics of these businesses are based way more on hope and hype than rational analysis and planning.
Realistically you certainly don’t Anthropic’s models for those things and can get something for a fraction of the price on OpenRouter/etc.