Programmers are inherently cheap for some reason, but in very weird ways. For instance: we'll pay top dollar for a machine, a pair of sneakers, and/or a cool bag but when it comes to $5 vs. $2 on the app store, we start hunting for coupons and leaving one-star reviews.
One of the biggest things I had to embrace when going out on my own was that I would have to learn how to pay for my time. That meant finding services that I could pay which would give me time back.
Services like:
- Paying for Claude Pro, and then Claude Max. The first choice was difficult as I didn't think I needed Claude Pro... how wrong I was.
- GitHub Pro for private repos on my orgs.
- Supabase Pro because I like Supabase.
- Vimeo Pro because hosting videos is not what I want to be doing.
Of all of these, moving from free to Claude Pro felt like I was the biggest leap for me. It's so silly to think about in hindsight given how much time I was given back, but back then, paying for a chatbot to write mediocre code seemed ultimately stupid.
Did you see that right there? The framing I used when it came to paying for Claude Code? I would rather spend my time writing code by hand than saving 100x my time because I "didn't want to pay for a chatbot to write mediocre code for me".
What process in my brain triggered that reframe! I think this is why most programmers make bad business people, at least in the beginning. We have to actively retrain ourselves to see what's important. Who cares how OpenClaw is architected! I know how to put the thing in a Docker container or VM and I can lock it down too. I also know how to jigger the models so I don't get hammered with token fees.
Yeah come at me and tell me about the Meta person deleting her inbox. Sure there's the dude who let some type of claw drop prod. These are real concerns, true, but they're also social chemtrails because we have always found a way to carry around loaded footguns no matter the technology.
We focus on weird things.
The Token Police
If you put 5 programmers in a room discussing AI, I can guarantee you that token cost will be front and center within seconds.
I think I'll call this Conery's Law:
As any online discussion about AI coding assistants grows longer, the probability of someone min-maxing token costs approaches 1, regardless of whether they've ever actually checked their bill.
Said person complaining about token costs will then, most likely, show you their elaborate system for getting around said token costs. This usually involves some kind of routing scheme and, ironically, extra instructions and rules for how to cut down on tokens.
I stayed awake most of the night not working on the thing I should be working on so I could squeeze another few tokens from my process...
Or maybe just up your plan and get some sleep? BAH, where's the fun in that!?
Here's my contribution to the min-max token spend effort. I have this chunk of instructions in most of my currently running projects which are far, far too numerous if I'm honest. Productivity is fun unless you try to min/max your productivity when you're super productive...
