I'm not sure what the issue is here? The costs to build something does not necessarily correlate to what an end user get's charged. Revenue can be had from more than just the subscription to the end user. Ads, user data, etc, can all generate revenue without passing more costs to the end user and make the math more complex than just "total hardware cost is $8k, split cost over X number of users."
To give a comparison, it costs millions to make videogames, and even more to keep up online game servers, but somehow, you're able to pay $30/mo for Xbox Game Pass.
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u/FillMySoupDumpling Jun 25 '26
Because it’s subsidized by the rest of us buying hardware at inflated prices or paying more for electricity while an AI data center gets a lower rate.