Seedance is in a pretty weird spot right now. On one hand they’re hiking prices, on the other you still have to queue up for generations—users are complaining pretty loudly, and there are plenty of models catching up from behind. Being technically ahead and making it work as a business are two totally different things. No matter how strong your model is, if the user experience sucks and your pricing hits people where it hurts, your reputation will still take a hit.
What bothers me more is the queue issue—it shows their compute supply can’t keep up with demand. Raising prices is basically a way to price some users out to ease the load. It might keep the servers stable short-term, but long-term it’s pushing hesitant users straight into competitors’ arms.
Anyone who’s built a product knows that in a race, the biggest enemy of the leader isn’t usually the competition—it’s losing control of your own growth pace. Watching this round play out, the competition in video models has shifted from who has the best results to who’s more stable, who’s cheaper, and who doesn’t make you wait.