Skeeball

I loved going to the arcade when I was a kid. Mom or dad would hand me dollars, and I would go to the token machine and come out with pockets of coins, which I could put into skeeball, basketball, and other games to earn tickets. Then I could turn those tickets in for prizes, which would get lost or broken in a day.

My parents were generous, but they had limits on how much I could spend. Once that money was gone, I was left with whatever winnings I achieved. They knew that the money-to-ticket ratio was actually a really bad deal.

As a kid, I had no sense that I could have used those dollars to buy 10x as many prizes, but it was the thrill of playing the games that made the kiddy casino so much fun.

As an adult and a business owner, I am becoming increasingly aware that my personal computer is now the skeeball game of business. I plug in money in the form of software, hardware, and time and experience, and instead of getting tickets to claim, I get an electronic funds transfer to my bank account.

The biggest difference is that the money is mine, and it's becoming increasingly expensive over time.

Computer Tokens

The cost of tokens (feeding your computer with software) has risen dramatically over the last dozen years or so.

It used to be that you would buy a software package (like the Adobe Creative Suite or QuickBooks) and use it for 2-3 years before you felt it was necessary to upgrade because support was ending or you needed the new features. The cost of each package was around $300 to $600, but if you amortized it over the years, it could cost only $100-$250 per year.

Those CD-ROMs or downloadables with licenses have been replaced by monthly subscriptions. They started out reasonable enough at $20-$39.95 per month, but they have risen to $100 per month for Adobe and $1200 annually for QuickBooks Desktop. (I like to keep my files local rather than in the cloud, since it includes banking information that I see getting hacked almost monthly now.)

Subscriptions are easy to forget and can be paid via auto-debit or credit card charges. I keep a spreadsheet of those monthly charges and revisit it every quarter to make sure I actually need or use the tools I am paying for.

With the advent of AI, they are switching from the subscription model to a new token usage model, and that (I believe) will change the whole software-as-a-service (SAAS) business very soon.

Perplexity Pro & Computer

If you have read this blog, you probably know I love Perplexity as part of my AI diet. Perplexity has followed suit, aligning with OpenAI and Anthropic in creating a desktop model called Computer.

Perplexity Pro is the run-of-the-mill AI that you can ask questions, do research, create images and presentations in the cloud, and then download to your desktop or mobile phone. You subscribe to it for $20 a month.

Computer is an app on your desktop that will do work for you, like creating content, presentations, spreadsheets, and reports, or perform repetitive tasks using your apps (like Adobe and QuickBooks).

With the new Personal Computer on macOS, it can operate on your local files and native Mac apps while also working on the open web and Perplexity’s servers in the same task.

For example, you can ask Computer to pull numbers from a QuickBooks desktop report, update a Numbers or Excel file, then log into a web analytics or ad platform in the browser to reconcile data, all within one job.

When you use Computer, it burns credits based on how long it runs, how many steps/sub‑agents it uses, and which models/tools it calls.

Tokens are the tiny pieces of text (like letters and bits of words) that AI reads and writes, while credits are the higher‑level points your account spends to pay for big jobs that use lots of those pieces behind the scenes.

The Slot Machine

I have always felt like SEO and AdWords are like a slot machine. You put money in, pull the handle, and you get results. The dinging and music of the spinning wheels make it feel like progress, but unless you have some luck and get a matching winning result, you never know when those actions will result in making money.

If you keep spinning the reels or pulling the handle, you will win sometimes. That keeps bringing hope, but rarely results in a jackpot win. Often, you spend more than you win. That's how a casino makes money.

I feel like AI credits and tokens are just like that. It may take you two or ten tries to get your prompts to deliver the desired results. Once you have that, you can save the sequence of prompts to turn it into a repeatable task. BUT you pay off the spins with less-than-perfect results, and you keep paying every time you execute the winning hand.

The question you have to ask yourself is, is the cost of the time savings really saving you money, or are you subscribing to repetitive tasks that you could perform once you work out the correct sequence?

Tools vs Tokens

One thing I have learned over the years is that no matter how many times you try to get sales teams to post and engage on social media, full, consistent participation is an almost unattainable goal.

That is why customers have paid us to automate for them with a tool like Planable. Once we have access to people's personal log-ins, we can post to dozens of accounts at once. That creates a cohesive consistency that is rarely replicated by humans.

It takes a human to create the text and post the picture and link, and then comes the real magic. My social media person will contact me when Planable needs to update the connection (which happens often). It takes my personal relationship with each salesperson to earn the trust to give me their username and password to reconnect (especially when they change their password because they forgot the old one).

I am sure I could use Compuer to replace my social media person. Then I ask myself: “Could Computer recognize when a connection is broken?” “Would it text me when that happens?” “Would it cost more or less in tokens to maintain, update, and repeat the system weekly or more?”

The Cost of Tokens

The problem I have with Tokens is that you don't know what you are buying or how they are redeemed. In the arcade, it may take one or five tokens to play a game, but you are not prompted how many tokens are being used when you start a project sequence. They determine that based on time and complexity.

For example, there’s no way to give a precise “token count” for updating five WordPress pages, because Computer bills by task complexity and time, not by a simple per‑page or per‑click schedule.

With a subscription, you may overpay for bundled software or features you don't use. For example, with Adobe Creative Cloud, I use Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat, but I never use Premiere, After Effects, and Audition. That being said, I can at least track the use of the programs that I do use, and the cost is around $20 per program per month.

Token use is an enigma that could get costly when you pay $200 for 20,000 tokens per month, but there's no easy way to calculate the cost per token, per job, and how that either adds or subtracts from the actual cost of doing business.

Closing Thought

Business is not an arcade, but sometimes it can feel like it. I often feel like I am playing whack-a-mole with some clients. Or it can be like Missile Command (my favorite game). As you move through levels, the missiles come at you with more volume and speed. You have to protect your assets (cities in Missile Command, people, and profits with your business).

I am sure that Computer and tokens will become useful at some point, but I would rather walk into an arcade and pay $20 an hour to play games for tickets than to have to buy and spend tokens.

It would be easy to see how spending money on tokens with the trial and error of AI at this point can cost you much more than whatever system you have in place that is currently working.

After all, winning the game in business is making more money than you spend, and controlling that spend and consistent invoicing can be the main way you win the game!

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Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about business-to-business sales and marketing today! Do you have a sales or marketing communications strategy that works for you? What tips or techniques can you share that work for you and your business?

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.