alt Hacker News>The cost to use tokens is already zero or deeply negative, depending on your accounting
???
Sure, there's zero cost tokens in the form free chatgpt, but negative cost implies that you're getting paid to consume tokens, which I'm not aware of?
Replies
AnimalMuppet • yesterday at 6:47 PM
I mean, sure, sign me up, and I'll use a bunch of negative-cost tokens...
In the sense that OpenAI had ~$2.5 billion of revenue 2024 but likely spent ~$3.8 billion just on inference.
Meaning they lose 50 cents for every dollar they spend to send you a token, more if you are a free user. This discounts employees, CapEx, real and imagined (1.4T), overhead, and training (subsidized by M$oft).
Thus, if you have a way to turn every token they give you back into USD, even at a discounted rate, you can and should rob them blind before the well dries up.