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Claude Code is being dumbed down?

symmetrybreak.ing

161–170 of 732 posts

Re: Claude Code is being dumbed down?

#161
post #143

Serous question - why do people stick with Clause Code over Cursor? With Cursors base subscription I have access to pretty much all the Frontier models and can pick and choose. Anthropic models haven’t been my go-to in months, Gemini and Codex produce much better results for me.

My answer is that I tested both, and Claude Code (~8 months ago) was so obviously better than Cursor that I continue to happily pay Anthropic $200/month. Based on anecdotes I happen to catch, I don't believe Cursor's caught up.

The value isn't just the models. Claude Code is notably better than (for example) OpenCode, even when using the same models. The plug-in system is also excellent, allowing me to build things like https://charleswiltgen.github.io/Axiom/ that everyone can benefit from.

Re: Claude Code is being dumbed down?

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on. That pays for more than 10 fte in some countries

I made this joke with "$1,500-$2000 per month" last night and everyone thought I was serious

I would probably pay $2000 a month if I had to - it's a small fraction of my salary, and the productivity boost is worth it.

Re: Claude Code is being dumbed down?

#163

> Read 3 fies (ctrl+o to expand) What if you hit ctrl+o?

exactly what i think when reading the top of the article, maybe the author turned off vebose mode

The verbose mode is, well, verbose. They removed, without any need, info and hid it in a wall of text.

Re: Claude Code is being dumbed down?

#164
I've been on the other side of this as a PM, and it's tough because you can't always say what you want to, which is roughly: This product is used by a lot of users with a range of use cases. I understand this change has made it worse for you, and I'm genuinely sorry about that, but I'm making decisions with much more information than you have and many more stakeholders than just you.

> What majority? The change just shipped and the only response it got is people complaining.

I'll refer you to the old image of the airplane with red dots on it. The people who don't have a problem with it are not complaining.

> People explained, repeatedly, that they wanted one specific thing: file paths and search patterns inline. Not a firehose of debug output.

Same as above. The reality is there are lots of people whose ideal case would be lots of different things, and you're seeking out the people who feel the same as you. I'm not saying you're wrong and these people don't exist, but you have to recognize that just because hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of people want something from a product that is used by millions does not make it the right decision to give that thing to all of the users.

> Across multiple GitHub issues opened for this, all comments are pretty much saying the same thing: give us back the file paths, or at minimum, give us a toggle.

This is a thing that people love to suggest - I want a feature but you're telling me other people don't? Fine, just add a toggle! Problem solved!

This is not a good solution! Every single toggle you add creates more product complexity. More configurations you have to QA when you deploy a new feature. Larger codebase. There are cases for a toggle, but there is also a cost for adding one. It's very frequently the right call by the PM to decline the toggle, even if it seems like such an obvious solution to the user.

> The developer’s response to that?

> I want to hear folks’ feedback on what’s missing from verbose mode to make it the right approach for your use case.

> Read that again. Thirty people say “revert the change or give us a toggle.” The answer is “let me make verbose mode work for you instead.”

Come on - you have to realize that thirty people do not in any way comprise a meaningful sample of Claude Code users. The fact that thirty people want something is not a compelling case.

I'm a little miffed by this post because I've dealt with folks like this, who expect me as a PM to have empathy for what they want yet can't even begin to considering having empathy for me or the other users of the product.

> Fucking verbose mode.

Don't do this. Don't use profanity and talk to the person on the other side of this like they're an idiot because they're not doing what you want. It's childish.

You pay $20/month or maybe $100/month or maybe even $200/month. None of those amounts entitles you to demand features. You've made your suggestion and the people at Anthropic have clearly listened but made a different decision. You don't like it? You don't have to use the product.

Re: Claude Code is being dumbed down?

#165
post #99

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/8477 https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/15263 https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/9099 https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/8371 It's very clear that Anthropic doesn't really want to expose the secret sauce to end users. I have to patch Claude every release to bring this functionality back.

I just assume that they realized that they can split the offering, and to charge for the top tier more. (Yes, even more.) If Claude Code can replace an engineer, it should cost just a bit less than an engineer, not half as much.

But then you pay for the less outrageously subsidized rates of API instead of the a bit less incredibly generous prices of the subscription.

Re: Claude Code is being dumbed down?

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but I benefit so much from using Claude at work that I would gladly pay $80,000-$120,000 per year to keep using it.

Why would you gladly pay more than what it's worth? It's not an engineer you are hiring, it's AI. The whole point of it was to make intelligent workflows cheaper. If it's going to cost as much as an engineer, hire the engineer, at least you'd have an escape goat when things invariably go wrong.

> an escape goat

Autocorrect hall of famer, there.

Re: Claude Code is being dumbed down?

#167
The histrionic tone is annoying but this is actually a feature failure. The utility of seeing what files were being read is I could help direct its use if it goes down the wrong pathway. I use a monorepo so that's an easy mistake for the software to make.

Re: Claude Code is being dumbed down?

#169

Working at Microsoft, I've just now hooked up to Claude Code (my department was not permitted to use it previously), through something called "Agent Maestro", a vscode extension which I guess pipes claude code API requets to our internally hosted Claude models, including Opus 4.6. I do wonder if there is going to be much of a difference between using Claude Code vs. Copilot CLI when using the same models.

> I do wonder if there is going to be much of a difference between using Claude Code vs. Copilot CLI when using the same models.

I’m also at MS, not (yet?) using Claude Code at work and pondering precisely the same question.

Re: Claude Code is being dumbed down?

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made this joke with "$1,500-$2000 per month" last night and everyone thought I was serious

I would probably pay $2000 a month if I had to - it's a small fraction of my salary, and the productivity boost is worth it.

It's *worth it* when you're salaried? Compared to investing the money? Do you plan to land a very-high-paying executive role years down the line? Are you already extremely highly paid? Did Claude legitimately 10x your productivity?

edit: Fuck I'm getting trolled

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