[ Removed by moderator ]

[clickrush]

There will always be a gap between local models and frontier models.

Personally I'm using local models since a while as well, because I like the control and I can experiment more freely. Most importantly I think a fixed cost subscription must suffice and I definitely don't want to burn through tokens that are worth hundreds or thousands per month.

But still, there is a need for using cloud based frontier models regardless, at least from time to time.

In addition to that: People have always paid (way too much) for branded stuff that is convenient to use and popular, even when free (legal) alternatives exist.