Smart metering by the hour: My first thought was lab budgets getting tighter

Just watched that video of Altman at the BlackRock Infrastructure Summit. He said AI will eventually be metered like water or electricity, with tokens being the new kilowatt-hours. The idea itself isn't new—API pricing has always worked this way—it's just elevating the billing model from "pay-as-you-go" to an "infrastructure narrative." What really threw me off was that phrase: metered utility. Once the water/electricity/gas metaphor comes out, the nature of it changes.