there are roughly three of them and they all use the same pricing model. I am al...

olibhel · 2026-08-22T20:53:34

You could try:

1. Self hosting

2. Chinese models

3. Running it locally. Requires upfront cost and compromises on TPS.

sebastiennight · 2026-08-23T14:15:53

> I am also not in the position to build a frontier model company these days.

Well if you're not even going to put in the effort...

Wait. Let me do this for you.

     /config model=boredumb effort=xhigh

     /ultraplan "Build a frontier model that can run @1ktok/sec anywhere DOOM will run"

surgical_fire · 2026-08-22T19:09:10

There are more than 3.

Hell, I use 3 different providers, and I currently don't give a dime to Anthropic or OpenAI.

hn_throwaway_99 · 2026-08-22T19:59:39

A per-token model roughly aligns with the providers' costs, and it is an objective measure, so it seems a reasonable way to charge.

I see posts all the time on HN about which models from which providers offer the most bang-for-the-buck, and how to minimize token usage and still get optimal results, so it appears that competition is working.

shepherdjerred · 2026-08-23T18:04:19

there are way more than three options. the following all have great models

- OpenAI

- Anthropic

- Google

- xAI (Grok)

- Moonshot (Kimi)

- Z (GLM)

- Meta (Muse)

- Deepseek