RNet: Users pay for their own AI usage instead of apps covering token costs

Developers currently pay for AI usage and then recover costs through subscriptions, rate limits, or pricing tiers. This creates a few problems:1.Apps have to track per-user usage and build complex billing logic.2.Users end up paying multiple times for the same underlying AI across different apps.I’m experimenting with a different model: users fund their own AI usage directly, similar to prepaid mobile data.In this system:1.Users preload a balance 2.Each request is signed by the user 3.The cost is deducted from the user’s balance per request 4.Apps don’t pay for tokens or manage billingI built a prototype called rNet.

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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Ycombinator.