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I absolutely hate it, when a website says "try this" and after you went through the trouble of weiting something comes up with a sign up link first. Makes me leave instantly to never come back.


Headline at the top of the Cerebras page linked to by the OP "Cerebras Raises $1.1B Series G at $8.1B Valuation".

If you're going after the AI money gravy train then you need to wave the "we have $n registered users" carrot on your PPT slides for the investors because registered user == monetization opportunity.

I'm not defending it. I hate being forced to register for shit when I just want to try it or use the free tier.

But it is what it is.


Well if they give it out for free (aka they pay for it), asking you to register is a reasonable ask. It's not a public service funded by taxpayers.


Yes they can ask, but do it at the beginning not the end of the process, this is a dark pattern and fucking annoying.


Anyone remember those online psychological tests where you spend an hour on one and in the end you need to pay up to get the result?)))


> do it at the beginning not the end

Exactly this.

If you present me with a form and a submit button then I expect the input to go through and a result to be presented.

If you don't want to present me with results before login, then put the form behind the wall too.

Simple.


> Well if they give it out for free (aka they pay for it), asking you to register is a reasonable ask

They have other options... rate limiting, serving (more) quantized to non-registered etc. etc.


Those options are still not free. And giving a degraded version of your product to free users is a bad way to acquire clients.


Right, being proud of your money making is not something I consider a consumer focused product unless that customer is other moneyseeking orga, which like cancer, often ends up in a bubble.


This is like declaring that a Ferrari dealership offering you a free test drive in a million dollar art exhibit on wheels is evil for asking for your phone number before handing you the keys.

If this was some beat-to-hell, high-mileage used economy car, sure, that would be a pain in the ass, and not worth it. But it's a mistake to place Cerebras into that mental bucket.

You don't even need to use real information to create an account. Just grab a temp-mail disposable address and sign up as fred flintstone or mickey mouse.

If you're a heavy LLM inference user (i.e. if you've ever paid for a $200/mo sub from any of the big AI labs), I can damn near guarantee you will not regret trying out Cerebras.


You didn't get my point at all.


Would your expectations be more aligned if it's said "free trial"? That might create an expectation of a sign up where "try this" might not.


Off topic but related.

A week ago I went to a launch party for a product that's supposed to "revolutionize design" (a web app w/ an OAI prompt).

No demo, only like two pictures of the actual product. Founder spent like half an hour giving a speech about the future, etc...

"All of you here will get access to it in a couple weeks."

Couple weeks go by ... I "get access". It's a .dmg, 1) What, I open it, it's not even an app, it's an installer ..., I install it, the app opens up and it's a giant red button that takes you to a website to create an account ...

These guys are completely lost.


Same with groq.com, there is a "try this", and after you enter the prompt, it asks you to sign in. Closed the page.


I was doing a demo to my colleagues and had the above.




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