It's crucial to distinguish between local computational expenses and global ones. Traditional docking programs typically generate ligand conformations on-the-fly from input structures, often using SMILES strings or 2D SDF files sourced from general databases. These conformations are generated quickly, with small local costs, either by the docking programs themselves or by thirdparty software. However, even within a single research group, the same conformations may be generated multiple times over weeks, months, or years. When considering how many research groups around the world do the same, it's likely that the same (low-quality) conformations are being generated hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of times independently each year.