> The $200 per month subscription comes with a ton of usage.
$200 dollars + VAT is half of my rent.
I know HN is not a good place to rant on this subject, but I'm often flabbergasted about the number of people here that lives in a bubble with regard to the price of tech. Or just prices in general.
I remember someone who said a few years ago (I'm paraphrasing): "You could just use one of the empty room in your house!". It was so outlandish I believed it was a joke at first.
The other part of the bubble is assuming working in projects that allow disclosing any code or project details to a generic third party with that kind of power asymmetry.
I think I am in the middle. I can afford $200/m but it'd be a brainer. And I don't pay that as I barely use home AI enough to warrant it.
I am also amazed at the richer end of HN but now I realize I am priviledged. Earned it? Like fuck I did. Lucky to be born a geek in late 20c. I'd be useless as a middle ages guy.
Nah, that's why you cannot not afford the subscriptions these days. Whatever your needs, ever since Claude Code became a thing, subscription costs come out massively cheaper than pay-as-you-go per-token API pricing. Also SOTA models are so much better than anything else, that using older or open models will just cost you more in tokens/electricity than going for SOTA subscription.
Subscriptions are definitely middle-class targeted. $20/month is not much for the value provided, at least not in the western world.
But if by "rich" you just mean "westerners", then in this sense, the same is and has always been true for computing in general.
We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Especially in context of discussing living at different economic strata, customers are neither expected nor supposed to voluntarily overpay out of a belief this will make an industry not try to rugpull everyone at some point.
Not sure. AI is sort of car ownership price. I think while that ain't poor, that is middle class.
So like if you want to start a business of any sort the AI sub is still peanuts.
AI is a car, or a dog, or a mild social life, or a utility bill level of cost. And thats for the level needed for a sane typical developer. (AI maximalists need 250k/y, let them slop it out)
It is not a Cessna, an infinity pool or a 1 month vacation.
It’s a good reminder. Claude Max costs about as much as the global poverty line ($3/day.) I think it’s okay to invest in it, but we should try to make sure it’s worthwhile, and also invest in charity.
$200/mo is a lot, sure, but the shocking part of that comparison is your rent. I didn’t know $400/mo apartments still existed. For most people in the US and EU, $200 would be closer to 15%-20% of rent I think? My cell phone bill for my family is almost $200/mo.
Last year, at first, $200 seemed crazy. Now that I’m getting addicted to coding agents, not so much. Some companies are paying API rates for AI for employees, and it’s a lot more than $200/mo. It seems like funny money, and I’m not sure it’ll last.
As you've probably guessed, I don't live in the US, so the price are drastically different. I live in the EU. And for my case, I love in really small flat for some years, so the rent couldn't go up a lot.
> most people in the US and EU, $200 would be closer to 15%-20% of rent I think?
> the average rent is north of $1000/mo.
I really don't know where you get your number from, $1000/mo average is really wild to me. With this amount, you can rent a flat for a whole family in the heart of the city. Nobody of my more well-of friends have a rent this high.
Or maybe you have some capital city in mind like Paris or London?
> I really don’t know where you get your number from
I googled it. According to Google, London’s average rent is around €2,700, around 3x higher than the average. I assume the number of people living there and paying that much balances against the number of people like you living in smaller towns and rural areas who are paying lower rents.
But yes, rents have become very high everywhere. I live in a medium sized city in the US not anywhere near a coast, and most kids attending the local university are paying over $1000/mo for a 1-bedroom place. The primary way to get cheaper rent is to have flat-mates, try to get 3 or 4 people into a place that rents for, say, $2500/mo.
I was paying $2k/mo in San Francisco 25 years ago for a place that was maybe 90m^2, and since then rents have gone way up. Google says the average now is just under $4k/mo. In some nicer neighborhoods, some people pay $8k/mo for a single bedroom. This big-city rent in SF, LA, NY, Chicago, Miami, etc. balances against the small towns in the US where you can find a room for $500/mo, which is why the average is above $1k.
It is my belief that rent price scales with the leftover income people have after they've paid for other necessities. Ie if you're from a poorer country/area then things like milk and gasoline will cost a similar amount (maybe 2x difference), but rent will cost a lot less. As people in a country get richer they start paying a larger and larger share of their income as rent of various forms.
Even the US has places with cheap rent/housing. The downside is that there's no (well-paying) work nearby.
It’s true that average rent prices are regional and poorer areas have lower rents, but that doesn’t tend to make much difference in urban areas and large cities where the majority of people live now. Why do you feel that rent scales with disposable income? Economists generally say the opposite based on housing being a core necesessity; that people pay rent in proportion to their income, and only what’s left over the the disposable amount. That’s why we have the 30% rule, for example.
You’re technically correct, btw, rental housing is a market and is subject to market forces, meaning what people are willing to pay. I’m just not so sure about framing rent as being lower priority than other necessities. And rent prices have been increasing faster than other necessities, and faster than income, so that might be a confounding factor in your argument.
Still, my initial reaction above is due to the fact that in the US and in Europe in most large cities, the average rent is north of $1000/mo.
>Why do you feel that rent scales with disposable income?
Because I'm from a country where 30 years ago average income was $220/month. Today it's $2475/month.
A large portion of people live in the same houses and apartments now as people did back then. The housing hasn't changed, but today renting a 70 sqm apartment costs you $800/month - the same apartment that people in 1996 lived in with their $220 monthly wage.
The reason why I think that housing is "lower priority" when setting a price is because the sale/rent price for housing is more divorced from the "manufacturing cost" compared to other goods. This happens for a number of reasons:
1. Housing scales with money. Most people live well beyond the "minimum required" for housing. You could survive living in a tiny room with a shared bathroom, but most of us want more than that. Compare this to food - rich and poor people will drink a similar amount of milk. You can't really spend 100x on milk and actually get appreciable benefits from doing so. You can with housing. (Same goes for most other goods. A $3 million car is not 100x better than a $30k car, it's not even 10x better.)
2. Housing is non-fungible. You can't have two houses in the same location. Food, furniture, and electronics are fungible.
3. Housing doesn't depreciate with use compared to other goods. You drink milk and it's gone. You drive your car and it degrades. Your house degrades simply by existing - your use of it will degrade it a little, but living in it also means you do maintenance, like cleaning, that will help keep its value.
4. Because of the above, housing is an asset that people invest in. This is a bit circular, but it also means a lot of people don't want to see housing become cheaper.
>And rent prices have been increasing faster than other necessities, and faster than income, so that might be a confounding factor in your argument.
Because the cost to produce other necessities hasn't increased as quickly as incomes have increased. We have better technology and better economies-of-scale that has made the cost of other goods cheaper. Now people have more money left over to pay for rent, so they do.
Yes rent (like everything) does scale with inflation. All the absolute numbers you’re using make reasoning about this more difficult than necessary. It’s better to use percent of income, in order to get a sense for whether today’s rent is more or less expensive for the renter. That said, you gave an example from 1996 of a $220/mo avg. income and $220/mo rent, which doesn’t add up. Google tells me that as a percent of income, rent has increased over the last 30 years. You might be right; that might be in part enabled by the cost of some goods going down. But the price of food hasn’t gone down. Higher rents also might be in part changes in spending habits, so you’d need to show those haven’t changed.
I used the wrong word, btw. The word I meant to use was ‘discretionary’ income. I think that’s what you’re suggesting, that rent is discretionary? ‘Disposable’ income is what’s left after taxes, but ‘discretionary’ income is defined as being what’s left after paying for things like rent, transportation, food, and utilities (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/discretionaryincome.asp)
It’s true the amount one spends on rent is a bit elastic, and that is also true for most consumer goods. The problem with your argument is that rent is not optional, like most consumer goods are. There are very few things that one cannot go without paying for at all, and rent is one of those.
If I understand correctly, what you’re suggesting is the reverse of how most people including economists think of rent. This discussion does depend heavily on what “other goods” you’re actually talking about. Can you provide more concrete examples, and show that they really are getting less expensive over time? Is your hypothesis supported by Eurostat’s HICP or the World Bank’s data on inflation and consumer prices?
In the US/Western Europe? Because for devs especially in the former, $200 is pocket change, especially for a core productivity tool. And the rent would be in the $1200 to $3000 easily. Same for houses. Maybe not in NY or SF, but in most of the US there's no shortage of house spaces and redundant rooms.
I've seen those comments about $200/month and empty rooms here, so I suppose they mainly come from the US, yes.
So yes, you describe a situation that I feel like a lot of people here don't understand is not the norm.
I compared the subscription with my rent precisely because it's easier to compare: with your numbers it would be like paying from $600 up to $1500 / month. Pretty hard to justify.
Are you not a dev? If not, what would you use a coding tool for? They still require handholding for anything largeish. Still much cheaper than outsource.
First, I've assumed you were in the bubble I described, but that's not the case, so sorry bout that.
Also, I think it's relevant to the conversation.
You replied to someone who said that "you" (undirected pronoun I suppose) can't afford the SOTA that the $200/month Anthropic subscription comes with a ton of usage. So I interpreted it as a general statement. It wasn't what you meant?
I'm a bit lost about who you're talking to/about in your first comment: the person you respond to, a general statement for everyone reading, or yourself?
I assume when somebody says you and is not talking about anyone in particular they mean that it's infeasible for virtually everybody which is certainly not the case. Also you conveniently disregarded the fact that is available on the $20 per month plan.
Okay, I understand better. I interpreted your answer as "well, it's $200, everybody can afford it". Clearly a misunderstanding.
Going back to the $20 plan, yes, I agree it's much more accessible.
I didn't talk about it because I've seen a lot of comments here, on blogs, on social media about how a $200 subscription for Claude is a no brainer. And it got on my nerves, so I wanted to tell how much money it can be. To you (and it was misguided reading your answers), and to concerned HN commenters in general.
I'm not sure I've correctly understood what you're implying.
If it's that I'm not working, well, I'm employed.
It it's that I'm not working enough to not have this money... Well, we still go back to the bubble. Not everywhere in the world you can easily find a job that pays you enough, even if you accept to work more. And the employer will not accept to give developers a $200/month subscription, even less for personal use.
If it's that I'm not working enough and I should go freelancing to work as much as I want and get rich (I'm extrapolating). Well, you're right, I could do that. But (at least at first), I would work a lot more for much less money. And even if I become a recognized freelancer, it doesn't change the fact that I'll earn less money compared to the baseline of SF, or even the USA in the tech sector in general. So, bubble again. I could also, like someone said, put the tokens cost into my hourly/daily rate, but I'll be much more expensive than other freelancers.
Also, but that's a "me case" compared to my previous points, health issues can greatly affect how much work you can do.
Instinctively, if we suppose all the newbies freelancers without any reputation start with the same lowest rate possible to be competitive, passing additional cost to my client will mechanically increase my rate. Putting me in disadvantage about getting any work. And with the difference of monetary value for the same price of tokens, the rate delta is higher.
It's a simplified model of the world, but it feels like simple economic rules.
I assume the comment I'm referring to was written by someone who is already established and for Wich the token cost passing is lower relatively to my environment.
>I'm often flabbergasted about the number of people here that lives in a bubble with regard to the price of tech
Sorry, no. You live in the bubble, the people you think are living in a bubble are actually doing the very opposite and taking advantage of the lack of bubbles in our globally connected world.
Today, basically anyone can sell any bullshit to billions of people around the world. We’ve never lived in less of a bubble.
The thread started with "$200 is a lot for most of the world", the person I was replying to said "no it's not, now anyone can sell to billions of people", and I said "company success being concentrated in SF shows that that's not true".
>company success being concentrated in SF shows that that's not true
You didn’t say that until now.
I think you’re wrong, SF being particularly good for big companies might indicate something if the conversation was about succeeding at a grand scale, not about being able to afford $200/mo
So if I ask you to form an image of a song, (or recall it in your mind): the "happy birthday" song. How vivid or clear is it? Do you have no clarity, some, or lots? is it vivid as the actual sound as if you were hearing it in real life? Do you notice the tune as well as the words?
Now change this image of happy birthday so that it's now a childrens choir singing it. Now change it so its by a bunch of cynical unix grey beards singing it in a convention.
How easy was it to change this image? Did changing it affect the clarity?
Wow, these questions are really interesting, I've never thought about it!
For my favorite songs, I can recall it perfectly... But I don't hear it at all as if I was hearing it in real life. In fact, I don't know how to describe how vivid it is. Maybe I don't hear it at all? But I can sing these songs (out loud) without a problem.
However, I seem to be incapable of changing some elements about it. I can't seem to be able to make it faster, slower, change the singer, or the instruments. But, when I sing it out loud, I can of course modify it.
For "Happy birthday" (well, in my native language), it's really weird. Because I don't have a specific song in mind, I can follow the words, the tune, but I don't "feel" the voice of a specific singer. And I'm incapable to change this recall to different voices, like children or grown men. But if I listen to a version sung by these people, I can recall it after (until I forget).
Thanks again for these questions, I was aware of my lack of inner voice, my difficulties of a "inner sight" (that's a whole other can of worms), but I never applied this interrogations to a "inner hearing".
I got and adapted the questions from a survey about these issues but I've been trying to get the question right as we tend to use language which presupposes things.
I like this one as it asks to form an image and asks about clarity. The image is about hearing. So it crosses both parts.
Another example would be to form an image of a telemarketer on the telephone. Change the accent. Introduce line distortion.
For me it's in the middle. Happy birthday is clear to visualise and I can follow the tune. it's not very vivid but it's like I'm singing to myself with my mouth shut. I don't have a mental "visual" image of the song by default. When changing it the imagery appears a bit more but the focus is on the sound. I can easily change it to children's voices, the unix greybeards is more difficult as it requires me working out what they would sound like including spatial echoes from the auditorium. I find the resulting image (which is clearer than the children) is amusing.
Ha, interesting! I don't have the control you have on my inner hearing. For a song I love, I can like sing along with my mouth shut, not only the voices, but also the instruments. Strangely, it's hard to have the complete song at the same time (voice + instruments), but I suspect it's more of a skill issue, as I seem to be able to do it faintly.
I'm not envious of the people who have an inescapable inner voice. I think it would hinder my thoughts, the speed of it, and the ability to think abstractly. It's not totally baseless, because I can force myself to have an inner voice, but it's a conscious effort. Sometimes useful if I need to clarify my thoughts. On the same note, not having a inner voice makes it really difficult sometimes to put my emotions and thoughts into words.
But I'm really jealous about anyone that can clearly conjure images, "videos", and sounds in their mind, I feel like I have a big disadvantage if I want to learn to draw, 3D model, or play an instrument.
People speak of these things in term of identity, but I wonder how true that is. I could easily imagine (pun intended) these are more akin to skills, that can be improved with practice.
Actually now that I think about it, I do know that this is a well-known phenomenon in the chess world. Newcomers are unable to to play blind-chess. But experienced players say that they gradually learned how to do it. How it started as a really blurry picture of just a small part of the board, and how they gradually got better at remembering and visualizing the whole board at the same and were able to play full games with a blindfold.
I love L-Systems! Really simple concept and implementation, but a huge variety of results and extensions.
In parallel of my studies, I created some years ago on the side an interactive app for generating and coloring L-Systems : https://epholys.itch.io/lsys . It's a bit rough, but I created a lot of interesting trees (all here : https://imgur.com/a/0Rx7uln) and included them as a zip file alongside the app.
I love easy effects! I have a crappy webcam/mic combo, and the noise reduction filter is very performant, the people I'm speaking to are really grateful about it
Further down in this article, Kevin Hartnett wrote:
> The Euler equations are not a literal description of a real-world fluid. They include several nonphysical assumptions. For example, the equations only work if internal currents within a fluid don’t generate friction as they move past each other. They also assume that fluids are “incompressible,” meaning that under the rules of the Euler equations, you can’t squeeze a fluid into a smaller space than the one it already occupies.
> [...]
> These unnatural provisos led the mathematician and physicist John von Neumann to quip that the equations model “dry water.” To model the motion of a more realistic fluid with internal friction (or viscosity), researchers use the Navier-Stokes equations instead.
So it seems they know what they are writing about, at least more than you supposed.
I'm always happy to see L-Systems! I find them really awesome, the base principle is very simple: string rewriting. But the results can really be impressive for such a simple concept.
There is a lot of evidence indicating that the megafauna extinction was principally due to the human hunters. Here is a very good (but long) Twitter thread by a biologist explaining it in detail: https://twitter.com/DRMegafauna/status/1084896526151942145
It's really heartwarming to have progress in this field of medicine! I feel anxious just imagining being unable to move my arms.
But there's a catch:
> Despite these achievements, nerve transfer surgery still has some limitations. For the best results nerve transfers should ideally be performed within 6-12 months of injury.
I hope this method will progress to have a much longer span of time allowing this surgery.
The problem isn't with treating new injuries. There are a lot of paraplegics in the world today who were injured a long time ago, and it would be nice to fix them...
I can't help but to do a shameless plug: the author also have an article about L-Systems [0] which inspired me to create my own interactive generator [1]. There isn't a release yet, but it is mainly functional and I already have some awesome results! Here is a video demo [2] and some produced L-Systems [3].
$200 dollars + VAT is half of my rent.
I know HN is not a good place to rant on this subject, but I'm often flabbergasted about the number of people here that lives in a bubble with regard to the price of tech. Or just prices in general.
I remember someone who said a few years ago (I'm paraphrasing): "You could just use one of the empty room in your house!". It was so outlandish I believed it was a joke at first.
EDIT: "not", minor grammar
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