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Why the 'Strivers' Are Right

https://greyenlightenment.com/2026/02/03/the-strivers-were-right-all-along/
1•paulpauper•1m ago•0 comments

Brain Dumps as a Literary Form

https://davegriffith.substack.com/p/brain-dumps-as-a-literary-form
1•gmays•1m ago•0 comments

Agentic Coding and the Problem of Oracles

https://epkconsulting.substack.com/p/agentic-coding-and-the-problem-of
1•qingsworkshop•2m ago•0 comments

Malicious packages for dYdX cryptocurrency exchange empties user wallets

https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/02/malicious-packages-for-dydx-cryptocurrency-exchange-empt...
1•Bender•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I built a <400ms latency voice agent that runs on a 4gb vram GTX 1650"

https://github.com/pheonix-delta/axiom-voice-agent
1•shubham-coder•3m ago•0 comments

Penisgate erupts at Olympics; scandal exposes risks of bulking your bulge

https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/penisgate-erupts-at-olympics-scandal-exposes-risks-of-bulk...
2•Bender•3m ago•0 comments

Arcan Explained: A browser for different webs

https://arcan-fe.com/2026/01/26/arcan-explained-a-browser-for-different-webs/
1•fanf2•5m ago•0 comments

What did we learn from the AI Village in 2025?

https://theaidigest.org/village/blog/what-we-learned-2025
1•mrkO99•5m ago•0 comments

An open replacement for the IBM 3174 Establishment Controller

https://github.com/lowobservable/oec
1•bri3d•8m ago•0 comments

The P in PGP isn't for pain: encrypting emails in the browser

https://ckardaris.github.io/blog/2026/02/07/encrypted-email.html
2•ckardaris•10m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Mirror Parliament where users vote on top of politicians and draft laws

https://github.com/fokdelafons/lustra
1•fokdelafons•10m ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Opus 4.6 ignoring instructions, how to use 4.5 in Claude Code instead?

1•Chance-Device•12m ago•0 comments

We Mourn Our Craft

https://nolanlawson.com/2026/02/07/we-mourn-our-craft/
1•ColinWright•14m ago•0 comments

Jim Fan calls pixels the ultimate motor controller

https://robotsandstartups.substack.com/p/humanoids-platform-urdf-kitchen-nvidias
1•robotlaunch•18m ago•0 comments

Exploring a Modern SMTPE 2110 Broadcast Truck with My Dad

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/exploring-a-modern-smpte-2110-broadcast-truck-with-my-dad/
1•HotGarbage•18m ago•0 comments

AI UX Playground: Real-world examples of AI interaction design

https://www.aiuxplayground.com/
1•javiercr•19m ago•0 comments

The Field Guide to Design Futures

https://designfutures.guide/
1•andyjohnson0•19m ago•0 comments

The Other Leverage in Software and AI

https://tomtunguz.com/the-other-leverage-in-software-and-ai/
1•gmays•21m ago•0 comments

AUR malware scanner written in Rust

https://github.com/Sohimaster/traur
3•sohimaster•24m ago•1 comments

Free FFmpeg API [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RAuSVa4MLI
3•harshalone•24m ago•1 comments

Are AI agents ready for the workplace? A new benchmark raises doubts

https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/22/are-ai-agents-ready-for-the-workplace-a-new-benchmark-raises-do...
2•PaulHoule•29m ago•0 comments

Show HN: AI Watermark and Stego Scanner

https://ulrischa.github.io/AIWatermarkDetector/
1•ulrischa•29m ago•0 comments

Clarity vs. complexity: the invisible work of subtraction

https://www.alexscamp.com/p/clarity-vs-complexity-the-invisible
1•dovhyi•30m ago•0 comments

Solid-State Freezer Needs No Refrigerants

https://spectrum.ieee.org/subzero-elastocaloric-cooling
2•Brajeshwar•30m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Will LLMs/AI Decrease Human Intelligence and Make Expertise a Commodity?

1•mc-0•32m ago•1 comments

From Zero to Hero: A Brief Introduction to Spring Boot

https://jcob-sikorski.github.io/me/writing/from-zero-to-hello-world-spring-boot
1•jcob_sikorski•32m ago•1 comments

NSA detected phone call between foreign intelligence and person close to Trump

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/07/nsa-foreign-intelligence-trump-whistleblower
13•c420•33m ago•2 comments

How to Fake a Robotics Result

https://itcanthink.substack.com/p/how-to-fake-a-robotics-result
1•ai_critic•33m ago•0 comments

It's time for the world to boycott the US

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/2/5/its-time-for-the-world-to-boycott-the-us
3•HotGarbage•33m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Semantic Search for terminal commands in the Browser (No Back end)

https://jslambda.github.io/tldr-vsearch/
1•jslambda•33m ago•1 comments
Open in hackernews

Ask HN: Is token-based pricing making AI harder to use in production?

3•Barathkanna•3w ago
Hi HN,

I’ve noticed a recurring theme in many threads here: AI is powerful, but once you move past demos, token based pricing becomes expensive and hard to reason about.

We ran into this problem ourselves while building AI powered systems. Predicting costs, budgeting usage, and experimenting safely all got harder as workloads grew. So we built a small AI API platform for inference, aimed at early developers and small teams who want to integrate AI without constantly calculating token usage. The focus is on lower and more predictable costs rather than chasing the newest model.

This is still early, and I’m mainly posting to learn from others here. For people running AI in production, what’s been the hardest part to manage so far? Cost, predictability, performance, or something else?

I’d really appreciate any insights or experiences.

Comments

iamrobertismo•3w ago
Not clear what you are pitching, if you don't control the infrastructure or have a major contract, how exactly are you lowering or stabilizing costs. Especially if you are not chasing the newest model, at this point token economics is essentially a commodity. Commodity pricing is not a engineering problem, it is a financing problem.
Barathkanna•3w ago
That’s fair, and I probably didn’t explain it clearly. We’re building an AI API as a service platform aimed at early developers and small teams who want to integrate AI without constantly thinking about tokens at all.

I agree that token economics are basically a commodity today. The problem we’re trying to address isn’t beating the market on raw token prices, but removing the mental and financial overhead of having to model usage, estimate burn, and worry about runaway costs while experimenting or shipping early features. In that sense it’s absolutely an engineering and finance problem combined, and we’re intentionally tackling it at the pricing and API layer rather than pretending the underlying models are unique.

iamrobertismo•3w ago
Would you just be... subsidizing low volume users? I am saying this isn't like a new problem in the grand scheme of things. hopefully I am not being too negative, do you have a site or something to learn more? It's not clear how you can have better token economics to provide me or someone else better token economics, rather than just burning more money lol.
Barathkanna•3w ago
Totally fair question, and you’re not being negative.

We’re not claiming better token economics in the sense of magically cheaper tokens, and we’re not just burning money to subsidize usage indefinitely. You’re right that this isn’t a new problem.

What we’re building is an AI API platform aimed at early developers and small teams who want to integrate AI without constantly reasoning about token math while they’re still experimenting or shipping early features. The value we’re trying to provide is predictability and simplicity, not beating the market on raw token prices. Some amount of cross-subsidy at low volumes is intentional and bounded, because lowering that early friction is the point.

If you want to see what we mean, the site is here: https://oxlo.ai Happy to answer questions or go deeper on how we’re thinking about this.

iamrobertismo•3w ago
Oh you're arbing! I see now. Makes sense, seems like it could be useful if you have a rock solid DX.
Barathkanna•3w ago
Thank you!! We are definitely fully focused on Developer experience. Would love some feedback if it looks interesting
elmascato•2w ago
The point about "removing the mental overhead" is underrated. It is often the cognitive load of the pricing model, rather than the absolute cost, that kills adoption.

I'm seeing a strong parallel in SaaS regarding Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). We often assume a user in India or Brazil doesn't convert because they "can't afford" $49, but the friction is often psychological. Even for high earners in those regions, paying a double-digit USD subscription feels "wrong" or predatory relative to local goods.

Just as you are abstracting away the token math to lower the barrier to entry, we need to abstract away the currency inequality. I've been working on a client-side widget to handle this (tierwise.dev) and noticed that simply aligning the price with the user's local context making it "feel" fair spikes conversion rates significantly.

Whether it's flattening token variance or localizing purchasing power, the goal is the same: stop the user from doing math and let them focus on the product value.