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Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

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Re: Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

#161
post #65

Has anybody else noticed a pretty significant shift in sentiment when discussing Claude/Codex with other engineers since even just a few months ago? Specifically because of the secret/hidden nature of these changes. I keep getting the sense that people feel like they have no idea if they are getting the product that they originally paid for, or something much weaker, and this sentiment seems to be constantly spreadin…

Well, off the top of my head: - Banning OpenClaw users (within their rights, of course, but bad optics) - Banning 3rd party harnesses in general (ditto) (claude -p still works on the sub but I get the feeling like if I actually use it, I'll get my Anthropic acct. nuked. Would be great to get some clarity on this. If I invoke it from my Telegram bot, is that an unauthorized 3rd party harness?) - Lowering reasoning eff…

claude -p not working would be instant unsubscribe downgrade from Max to Pro and further drive my use of codex. I use both but overall have noticed I reach for Claude less than codex lately because claude keeps getting slower and slower (I have not noticed a drop off in quality, but I use it less and less so maybe I'm not in a good position to notice).

Generally I find codex and claude make a good team. I'm not a heavy user, but I am currently Claude Max 5x and ChatGPT Plus. Now that OpenAI has a $100 offering and I am finding myself using Claude less, I am considering switching to Claude Pro and ChatGPT Pro x5. The work hours restriction on Claude Max x5 really pisses me off.

I am not a heavy user. Historically I only break over 50% weekly one week a month and average about 30-40% of Max x5 over the entire month. I went Max because of the weekly limits and to access the better models and because I felt I was getting value. I need an occasional burst of usage, not 24/7 slow compute. But even for pay-as-you-go burst usage Anthropic's API prices are insane vs Max.

I have yet to ever hit a limit on codex so it's not on my mind. And lately it seems like Claude is likely to be having a service interruption anyway. A big part of subscribing to Claude Max was to get away from how the usage limits on Pro were causing me to architect my life around 5hr windows. And now Anthropic has brought that all back with this don't use it before 2pm bullshit. I want things ready to go when the muses strike. I'm honestly questioning whether Anthropic wants anyone who isn't employed as a software engineer to use their kit.

Anyway for the last month or so codex "just works" and Claude has been an invitation for annoyances. There was a time when codex was quite a bit behind claude-code. They have been roughly equal (different strength and weaknesses) since at least February (for me).

Re: Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble with that argument, though, is that it works the other way as well: how do I, a random internet citizen, know that you're not doing the same thing for Anthropic with this comment? (FWIW I have definitely noticed a cognitive decline with Claude / Opus 4.6 over the past month and a half or so, and unless I'm secretly working for them in my sleep, I'm definitely not an Anthropic employee.)

https://isitnerfed.org/ in short, it looks like nothing has been nerfed, but sentiment has definitely been negative. I suspect some of the openclaw users have been taking out their frustrations.

That's fascinating.

Any idea what their test harness looks like? My experience comes primarily from Claude Code; this makes me wonder if recent CC updates could be more to blame than Opus 4.6 itself.

Re: Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

#163

I think they changed the quantification to save computer power for their new model. This might be why the benchmark scores look good, but the real world performance is much worse. I'm wondering if they're testing the model internally and didn't find anything wrong with the new parameter. I canceled my subscription and switched to a codex, but it's not as good. I'm tired of Anthropic changing things all the time. I us…

Claude is worse, they don't tell you when your experience has degraded and don't even let you use worse models if you run out any.

Re: Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claude Code was the best harness from roughly around release to January this year. Ever since then, it's become more and more bloated with more and more stuff and seemingly no coherent plan or vision to it all other than "let's see what else that sounds cool we can cram in there."

What's taken over since then? Codex or something else?

Pi.dev

Re: Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

#165
From the recent-ish Dwarkesh podcast, Anthropic seems to be wary about buying/building too much compute [0]. That probably means that they have to attempt to minimize compute usage when there is a surge in demand. Following the argument in the podcast, throwing more money after them, as some in this thread are suggesting, won’t solve the issue, at least not in the short term.

[0] https://www.dwarkesh.com/i/187852154/004620-if-agi-is-immine...

Re: Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

#166
post #130
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A month ago the company I work at with over 400 engineers decided to cancel all IDE subscriptions (Visual Studio, JetBrains, Windsurf, etc.) and move everyone over to Claude Code as a "cost-saving measure" (along with firing a bunch of test engineers). There was no migration plan - the EVP of Technology just gave a demo showing 2 greenfield projects he'd built with Claude Opus over a weekend and told everyone to copy…

But cancelling IDE subscriptions? You need a proper IDE to along side AI augmented development unless you want to simply be along for the ride.

Free VS Code is probably fine

Re: Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

#167

On slightly off topic note: Codex is absolutely fantastic right now. I'm constantly in awe since switching from Claude a week ago.

I'm currently "working" on a toy 3d Vulkan Physx thingy. It has a simple raycast vehicle and I'm trying to replace it with the PhysX5 built in one ( https://nvidia-omniverse.github.io/PhysX/physx/5.6.1/docs/Ve... ) I point it to example snippets and webdocumentation but the code it gens won't work at all, not even close Opus4.6 is a tiny bit less wrong than Codex 5.4 xhigh, but still pretty useless. So, after reading…

While I’ve had tremendous success with Golang projects and Typescript Web Apps, when I tried to use Metal Mesh Shaders in January, both Codex and Claude both had issues getting it right.

That sort of GPU code has a lot of concepts and machinery, it’s not just a syntax to express, and everything has to be just right or you will get a blank screen. I also use them differently than most examples; I use it for data viz (turning data into meshes) and most samples are about level of detail. So a double whammy.

But once I pointed either LLM at my own previous work — the code from months of my prior personal exploration and battles for understanding, then they both worked much better. Not great, but we could make progress.

I also needed to make more mini-harnesses / scaffolds for it to work through; in other words isolating its focus, kind of like test-driven development.

Re: Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

#168

Has anybody else noticed a pretty significant shift in sentiment when discussing Claude/Codex with other engineers since even just a few months ago? Specifically because of the secret/hidden nature of these changes. I keep getting the sense that people feel like they have no idea if they are getting the product that they originally paid for, or something much weaker, and this sentiment seems to be constantly spreadin…

Anthropic seems to be playing the giant-tech-rent-capture game that all of the old guards have done for the past few years. We thought that the new age of AI might bring some fresh air into the mix, but I guess that optimism quickly faded.

Re: Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

#169

There’s a case for intelligent caching: coarse grained 1h and 5min type TTls are not optimal.

Caching LLM is not like caching normal content; the longer it is the more beneficial it is and it only stops being worth when user stops current session. So you'd need some adaptive algorithm to decide when to keep caching and when to purge it whole, possibly on client side, but if you give client the control, people will make it use most cache possible just to chase diminishing returns. So fine grained control here…

[deleted]

Re: Anthropic downgraded cache TTL on March 6th

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (claude -p still works on the sub but I get the feeling like if I actually use it, I'll get my Anthropic acct. nuked. Would be great to get some clarity on this. If I invoke it from my Telegram bot, is that an unauthorized 3rd party harness?) 100% this, I’ve posted the same sentiment here on HN. I hate the chilling effect of the bans and the lack of clarity on what is and is not allowed.

In this case, they handled things pretty well. You can still use openclaw etc with your regular Anthropic subscription, it will just count towards your extra credits / usage which you can buy for a 30% discount compared to API pricing. And they gave everyone one month’s value in credits. I don’t think they could have done that much better I’d say.

That does not address joshstrange's concerns.

There is very poor clarity about what is and isn't allowed with the Claude SDK/claude -p. Are we allowed to use it to automate stuff? What kind of tasks is it permitted to be used for? What if you call your script 'OrangeClaw' and release that on GitHub? What if your script gets super popular, does it suddenly become against TOS?

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