Tokens Too Cheap to Meter: How Collapsing Inference Costs Reshape AI Economics
teoruiz · hn · 2026-09-23
Drawing on the analogy of utility metering, the author explores what happens when inference tokens become too cheap to meter: data on the steep fall in inference prices, its drivers (distillation, serving-stack optimization, competition), and the knock-on effects on per-token pricing, app design, and compute demand.
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