Enterprises are hunting for cheaper AI models after expenses skyrocketed due to tokenmaxxing—a practice where employees maximize token consumption to appear productive to management. The tactic mirrors the long-discredited habit of using lines of code as a productivity metric.
Raffi Krikorian from Mozilla calls tokenmaxxing a "silly" measure that repeats the same mistake of earlier productivity metrics. By chasing token volume instead of actual output quality, companies are burning through budgets while creating perverse incentives that waste resources rather than drive real value.
