Lisa

A 30 second 1080p video on Wan 3.0 costs 90 credits. The same 30 seconds at the same resolution on Seedance 2.5 costs 513. Identical output spec, 5.7x the bill.

I can explain that to another builder in one sentence. I can't explain it to someone who just wants a video, because from where they sit they asked for the same thing twice and got two prices.

So you pick a lie. Flatten it and eat the variance, which means image users fund video users. Show the real number and your pricing page looks arbitrary. Or route quietly to the cheap model and ship worse output than they'd have chosen.

We show the real number on the generate button. It's the least bad of the three and it still costs us, because people anchor on the cheapest thing they ever saw and every model above it reads as a price rise.

Aura farming is the deliberate curation of one's image to build social capital. A calculated gym video. A well-timed silence. An aesthetic grid. It all counts.

I've been noticing how this plays out in founder culture. The "just shipped this" post with the perfectly messy desk in the background. The "here's what I learned from failing" essay that conveniently skips the part where they had a safety net. The "I work 4 hours a day" humble-brag.

It's not lying exactly. It's just... curated. Strategic. Designed to build a certain perception.

And I catch myself doing it too. Every post I write, I'm thinking about how it'll land. What it says about me. Whether it adds to the aura or subtracts from it.

In my 4 or 5 years of working at startups, I ve noticed that people always have a problem when they are told about changes:

free version jumped to a trial with a subscription or lifetime purchase

subscription and lifetime purchase prices increased