How to see through the opaqueness of pricing of tokens?

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I was reflecting on this after reading articles like these The rise of China’s hottest new commodity: AI tokens More! More! More! Tech Workers Max Out Their A.I. Use. (NYT Paywall) While conceptually a "unit," the pricing of Tokens is all over the place. Almost every 'AI service' provider provides a Freemium model where you sign up and get a few tokens and max it out with a couple of queries, prompting you to buy a plan that gives "x or y Tokens.' And the pricing is all over the place. How to...