Joules, not tokens: essay argues energy is the only substrate-neutral compute denominator
tctjr · x · 2026-10-31
tctjr argues compute economics is broken at the denominator: we bill in hours, instances, credits and tokens — units that drift with architecture, hardware and vendor policy — while physics doesn't. A joule is a joule on GPUs, analog crossbars, photonics or neuromorphic silicon. Working backward from simulation pricing through tokens, memory movement, dot products and Landauer's limit to the revival of analog computing, the piece concludes energy is the only substrate-independent denominator: if the price curve and physics curve disagree, someone is eating the difference.
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