Tell HN: Anthropic no longer allowing Claude Code subscriptions to use OpenClaw

Post by j45 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:16 AM UTC

jmalicki wrote: post #190

goosejuice wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying is conceptually true for subscription services in general, but thats not why they are making this change. There's a 5 hour limit and a weekly limit. Those are hard token limits. Everyone on a plan pays for the max set of tokens in that plan. The limits manage capacity. The solution to that isn't a change of ToS, it's adjusting the limits. In other words this is about Anthropic subsidizing their own…

You aren't paying to be using that limit all of the time. You are paying to be using that limit some of the time. There are 5 hour windows when you are sleeping and can't use it. There are weekend limits. Theoretically you can max out every 5 hour window, but they lose money on that. It's structured so users can have bursts of unlimited usage, and spend ~15% of the theoretical max cap, and that's still cheaper than a…

Post by mccoyb » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:16 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #180

mccoyb wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is confusing for a company to sell you the subscription service, say "Claude Code is covered", ship Claude Code with `claude -p`, and then say "oh right, actually, not _all of Claude Code_, don't try and use it as a executable ... sorry, right, the subscription only works as long as you're looking at that juicy little Claude Code logo in the TUI" The disrespect Anthropic has for their user base is constant and pal…

This strikes me the same way the people in college who would print 497 empty pages at the end of the semester for the quota "they'd paid for" or that one guy who made lemonade at restaurants with the free lemon wedges and sugar packets. "Contempt for users" is silly. Adjusting terms to handle users who use things as not intended isn't contempt.

Post by a10c » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:18 AM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #173

arewethereyeta wrote: post #70

Marketing geniuses. They had 2 options here: 1. Make a better product/alternative to Openclaw and start eating their userbase. They hold the advantage because the ones "using their servers too much" are already their clients so they could reach out and keep trying to convert. Openclaw literally brought them customers at the door. 2. Do everyone royally and get them off their platform - with a strong feeling of dislik…

I'm fine with it. I don't want my subscription subsidizing the claw people.

Post by ozim » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:21 AM UTC

PostOnce wrote: post #205

jesse_dot_id wrote: post #73

There seem to be a ton of people who don't understand how subscription services work. Every single one of them oversells their capacity. The power users that use the services a lot are subsidized by those who don't use it as much, which tends to be the vast majority of the user base. OpenClaw is an autonomous power user. The growing adoption of this walking attack surface was either going to A) cause the cost of Clau…

The entire point of AI is for it to do shit autonomously? The whole point is that the users can have it doing shit for them instead of them having to babysit the computer. The fact that users still have to sit there and argue with it erodes their value proposition. The proposition you can pay fewer salaries.

Post by TillE » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:21 AM UTC

muyuu wrote: post #186

bitpush wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even higher than $200? gosh, what are you doing to hit limits every day?

For me it's surprising that they expected anything other than heavy utilisation at that price point. People don't subscribe at those prices and forget about it.