In my part of the world, that tactic is used by telcos to sell "broadband data". You buy internet bundle of about $1 and they give you expiry of about a week. This drives up the "real" price of these purchases because of the time constraint. Ultimately, if you had 1GB of data left after a week, it is all gone and you have to purchase again - further driving sales. Since this is a third world country we're talking about and telco's tend to be oligopolies and tend to also do some form of price collusion among themselves, it was generally accepted as "just how things were".
But I always found it to be unfair because people should be allowed to take their time consuming whatever product they purchased.
I wonder if this is general practice for all llm apis? Am I missing something? Is this really how things should be? I can't seem to fathom why "purchased" llm credits should have an expiry date - however generous. Especially when the same credits can be used to access any of their available models.
klez•1d ago
I'd say you answered your own question.
> telco's tend to be oligopolies and tend to also do some form of price collusion among themselves, it was generally accepted as "just how things were"
So are LLM companies, at this stage
> Am I missing something?
Not really
> Is this really how things should be?
No, this is how thing are. I'm more than interested in ways to change the status quo, though.