Mastodawn

BramVanDriel 2d ago

Marius Gundersen - mdg 🌻

I am moving to a usage-based billing

Dear employer, I will no longer charger a flat monthly salary, instead I will move to token based billing. Included will be every token I receive as input, including but not limited to emails, slack messages, spoken words and mandatory multi-modal meetings that could have been emails. Included will also be output tokens in the form of code, documentation and small talk. Tokens will also be consumed by my internal monolog as I reason about problems.

@gundersen and you're not clear about the value of each token, I presume?

Marius Gundersen - mdg 🌻2d ago

@foobarblubb I understand your concern, but do not worry. I will price the usage at $10/$5/$20 per million input/reasoning/output token, though the prices may change at any time during the month, depending on stress level, mood and other factors beyond your control. You don't have to worry about a surprisingly large bill, as I will stop working when the alloted tokens for each month has been consumed. You can always ask me if all tokens have been consumed (this question also consumes tokens).

@gundersen I wanted to thank you for this much needed smile but both my bank and my lawyer proposed silence ;)

[off to my boss, discussing a new payment scheme]

tessarakt 2d ago

@gundersen @foobarblubb what about premium models?

F4GRX SÃ©bastien 2d ago

@gundersen aka spoons.

✧✦Catherine✦✧2d ago

@gundersen me, being a contractor: i guess i'm ahead of the curve?

McHollander | Celtic Folk Bard 2d ago

@gundersen So, freelance?

Damian Yerrick 2d ago

@gundersen Then I guess I'm way ahead of the curve, choosing hourly wages instead of a monthly salary. The manager eventually gets a feel for how many tokens I can process in a 15-minute billing unit.

Saxonbowman 2d ago

@gundersen Be careful what you wish for.

babble encat 2d ago

@gundersen big brain

Stefan Baur 8 * 💉2d ago

@gundersen Back in the days, our tokens were bananas, and problems were rated one-, two-, or three-banana-problems.

Marius Gundersen - mdg 🌻2d ago

@farbenstau token: noun, a unit of measurement of coffee consumed by a software developer working on a problem. A token is equal to a milliliter of coffee.

Stefan Baur 8 * 💉2d ago

@gundersen Regular or decaf?

tessarakt 2d ago

@farbenstau @gundersen The latter's effect is known as context poisoning. Start over in a new session after the daily budget has reset.

Mark Dominus 2d ago

@shapr I misread this as “sausage-based billing” and now I want etc.

Shae Erisson 2d ago

@mjd huh, now I want that too!

evilstevie 2d ago

@gundersen ...and the halucinations included in the output? do they cost more?

Thomas Eisenbock 2d ago

@gundersen So no more getting paid for taking a dump, first thing in the morning @ office.

tessarakt 2d ago

@gundersen Endless potential for saving. Just needs a little discipline on line manager's side to spend spoons^Wtokens efficiently.

Michael Dexter 2d ago

@gundersen Don’t forget the occasional surge pricing.

CassandraVert 2d ago

That sounds like how lawyers bill.

Jens Finkhäuser 2d ago

@gundersen Welcome to spoon theory, except you can't bill anybody, you're just weird.

Henryk Plötz 1d ago

@gundersen Make sure to provide a preview cost calculator so that they will know what it costs, starting next month. (Estimate roughly a factor 20-100 compared to current rates.)

TetsuoYtek 🟦1d ago

@gundersen 🤗 wonderful