Cost Crisis and Token Optimization

Token-based billing horror stories (Copilot up to $750/month, Uber $1,500 cap). Gartner predicts costs overtake salaries by 2028. Open-weight models (Kimi K3, GLM-5.2, DeepSeek V4 Flash) offer 10-50x cheaper alternatives. Tools like Not Diamond Code, Elastic InfoSec loop, and Muse Spark 1.2 pricing ($0.69/test) drive cost efficiency. Claude Code auto mode default may increase costs. DeepSeek-V4 Flash 0731 is 6x cheaper per task than GPT-5.6 Luna.