Token demand 10x-ing, supply only 3x-ing
Gavin Baker argued on Invest Like the Best that AI token demand is growing 10x next year while supply is only growing 3x, implying prices must rise.
Snapshot · God Mode Podcast
EP25: Anthropic vs OpenAI, SpaceX chaos, 25 lessons in 25 episodes
Explore episode
Aug 8, 2026
Where this was said
DeepSeek, too cheap to see on the chart
At 17:40 · chapter starts 15:02
Rik pulls up the token-cost chart that had been circulating on his timeline: Anthropic, OpenAI, Moonshot, Alibaba Qwen all show visible bars. DeepSeek V4 Flash is barely a sliver. The gap between proprietary subscriptions and DeepSeek's open-source API is so small that the subscriptions actually win on pure token value. But then the news drops mid-recording: DeepSeek has announced major API price increases. Ben unpacks the nuance — DeepSeek is open-source, so users can theoretically pull the model and run it elsewhere, meaning the official API hike is really about DeepSeek trying to make money rather than a fundamental model cost increase. Still, the direction of travel is clear: even the cheapest corner of the AI market is now moving toward monetisation, and the era of austerity pricing may be giving way to something more expensive across the board.
DeepSeek price hike mid-episode
DeepSeek, previously so cheap its pricing barely registered on token-cost charts, announced significant API price increases mid-episode.
Gavin Baker's Warning: Tokens Are About to Get More Expensive
Investor Gavin Baker laid out a stark supply-demand mismatch for AI tokens: demand is growing 10x next year while supply grows only 3x. Frontier labs won't cut pre-training to free up capacity, so consumer prices are heading up.
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