Hacker News with Generative AI: Costs

The True Costs of Being on YouTube (carlalallimusic.substack.com)
I started my YouTube channel in earnest in October, 2021, shortly before That Sounds So Good, my second cookbook, came out. A little over three years later, on January 29, 2025, I uploaded the 177th episode of Carla’s Cooking Show. That video, for a cheddar burger named after my mom, is my last for now, and possibly forever.

YouTube, Content Creation, Social Media, Costs, Personal Experience

82 points by exolymph 5 days ago | 68 comments

Servers can last a long time (world.hey.com)
We bought sixty-one servers for the launch of Basecamp 3 back in 2015. Dell R430s and R630s, packing thousands of cores and terabytes of RAM. Enough to fill all the app, job, cache, and database duties we needed. The entire outlay for this fleet was about half a million dollars, and it's only now, almost a decade later, that we're finally retiring the bulk of them for a full hardware refresh. What a bargain!

Servers, Hardware, Technology, Costs, Longevity

6 points by ksec 11 days ago | 0 comments

Datadog Dollars: Why Your Monitoring Bill Is Breaking the Bank (oneuptime.com)
Have you ever opened your monitoring bill and felt your heart skip a beat? You're not alone. In the world of digital infrastructure, many companies are experiencing sticker shock when they see their Datadog invoices. Let's unpack why your monitoring bill might be breaking the bank and explore how you can rein it back in.

Monitoring, Costs, Datadog, Cloud Infrastructure, SaaS

4 points by ndhandala 17 days ago | 1 comments

AI and two hundred dollar tasks (ninlabs.com)
In 2013, inspired by GitHub’s octocat, I too wanted a mascot. It wasn’t something I exactly needed, but I thought would be interesting to have. I had come across a freelance designer, and decided to splurge and commission a design. The designer did good work, and I was happy with the results. Overall, it cost $200.

Artificial Intelligence, Design, Freelance, Costs

83 points by azhenley 23 days ago | 84 comments

Pixelfed: The operational costs now exceed $4k USD vs. $1,465 from Patreon (mastodon.social)

Social Media, Open Source, Costs

32 points by doener 26 days ago | 7 comments

California's insurance is in crisis. The solution will cost homeowners a ton (cnn.com)

California, Insurance, Homeowners, Costs

18 points by this_weekend 42 days ago | 20 comments

Video Games Can't Afford to Look This Good (nytimes.com)
One way to understand the video game industry’s current crisis is by looking closely at Spider-Man’s spandex.

Video Games, Industry, Graphics, Costs

17 points by ingve 56 days ago | 12 comments

Ask HN: How do you cover healthcare as a founder? (US Only) (ycombinator.com)
Got a family of 3 while I work on my startup. Somehow we are surviving for Month over Month but healthcare costs are through the roof.

Startup Founders, Healthcare, US, Costs

20 points by deputychina 68 days ago | 11 comments

Cloudy with a chance of GPU bills: AI's energy appetite has CIOs sweating (theregister.com)
Organizations are being forced to rethink where they host workloads in response to ballooning AI demands combined with rising energy bills, and shoving them into the public cloud may not be the answer.

Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Energy, Costs, Data Centers

5 points by rntn 83 days ago | 0 comments

I Followed the Official AWS Amplify Guide and Was Charged $1,100 (elliott-king.github.io)
A few months ago, I was adapting an official guide for an AWS service. Specifically, integrating OpenSearch with Amplify. I worked through the guide, and modified and debugged it for my own purposes. A few weeks later, I received an AWS bill for over $1200, and almost had a heart attack. I hadn’t selected the most expensive OS instance type. I hadn’t even used it much at all.

AWS, Cloud Computing, Costs, Software Development, Open Source

461 points by thunderbong 99 days ago | 276 comments

WebSockets cost us $1M on our AWS bill (recall.ai)
IPC is something that is rarely top-of-mind when it comes to optimising cloud costs. But it turns out that if you IPC 1TB of video per second on AWS it can result in enormous bills when done inefficiently.

Cloud Computing, AWS, Costs, Optimization

362 points by tosh 106 days ago | 231 comments

Getting a Japanese CERO age rating for your game costs extra per platform (automaton-media.com)
Getting a game age rated in Japan can be an expensive experience – especially in the case of multiplatform and physical releases.

Video Games, Japan, Business, Costs

13 points by nafnlj 127 days ago | 13 comments

How much energy does desalinisation use? Is it “absurdly cheap”? (sustainabilitybynumbers.com)
Elon Musk has said several times recently that desalinisation is “absurdly cheap”.1

Energy, Desalination, Sustainability, Costs

28 points by philipkglass 150 days ago | 48 comments

Traveling with a Laptop and an iPad to Mexico? Prepare to Pay Hundreds (forbes.com)

Traveling, Mexico, Technology, Costs

41 points by josephcsible 173 days ago | 9 comments

The 1-HR nurse visits that cost $15B to Medicare (wsj.com)

Healthcare, Medicare, Costs

26 points by IG_Semmelweiss 199 days ago | 69 comments

Intel to shed at least 15% of staff to drive down costs (theregister.com)