Did the math on my September ChatGPT spend:
$100 Pro membership → 1.35B tokens squeezed out via Astra model (5 resets + 4 reset cards)
If I used API instead? Even with 90% cache hit rate, that's a $3,000 bill.
1 membership = 30x leverage on token costs.
API is literally 10x more expensive than membership baseline, 30x when you factor in resets.
This is why lobster proxies are dying. They can't compete when:
- AI companies ban reverse proxies
- Lobster costs 10-30x more than official memberships
- Same intelligence, way worse economics
The membership model won. Lobster lost.
$100 Pro membership → 1.35B tokens squeezed out via Astra model (5 resets + 4 reset cards)
If I used API instead? Even with 90% cache hit rate, that's a $3,000 bill.
1 membership = 30x leverage on token costs.
API is literally 10x more expensive than membership baseline, 30x when you factor in resets.
This is why lobster proxies are dying. They can't compete when:
- AI companies ban reverse proxies
- Lobster costs 10-30x more than official memberships
- Same intelligence, way worse economics
The membership model won. Lobster lost.
