Comment by jgmedr

Currently navigating this situation at my employer. We went from virtually unlimited token spend per software engineer, to $150 per month due the recent change in billing terms from GitHub Copilot. Rationed over a month, about $7.50 per day. Basically, a couple bad apples spoiled the bunch (contractors using Opus to center divs).

We're 15 days into this new policy and its going ~okay~. Engineers adapt as they do, and have been leaning on `gpt-5.6-luna xhigh`. Some contractors have already hit their budget limit for the month.

A couple observations here:

1. Because LLMs/agents are tools, limiting their usage becomes a distraction and ends up being more of a drag on each individual's productivity. Instead of "just doing the work" engineers are now wasting time tinkering with setups (graphs, caveman skills, etc.).

2. Skill atrophy is real. Engineers that hit their budgets are seemingly less productive and less capable which is deeply concerning.

3. There are legitimate conversations happening now to explore open source harnesses (opencode/pi) and open weight models at the company in order offset the costs associated with going through a standard provider.

4. Token prices are venture capital subsidies. Its essentially free samples to get the market hooked on their addictive white collar drug. Remember when an Uber cost $7? As soon as OpenAI and Anthropic go public, they will need to begin showing progress toward profitability. That is when the true price of a token will be revealed.