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I cancelled Claude: Token issues, declining quality, and poor support

nickyreinert.de

101–110 of 604 posts

Re: I cancelled Claude: Token issues, declining quality, and poor support

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily local AI is becoming more feasible every day.

I love how it's just a tacit understanding that these companies' entire MO is to carve out a territory, get everyone hooked on the good stuff and then jack up the price when they're addicted and captured -- literally the business plan of crack dealers, and it's just business as usual in the tech industry.

I was recently introduced to the term "vcware", ala shareware or vaporware, to describe these products. "Don't use that, it's vcware, enshitification is coming soon."

Re: I cancelled Claude: Token issues, declining quality, and poor support

#102
post #47

I feel like I'm using Claude Opus pretty effectively and I'm honestly not running up against limits in my mid-tier subscriptions. My workflow is more "copilot" than "autopilot", in that I craft prompts for contained tasks and review nearly everything, so it's pretty light compared to people doing vibe coding. The market-leading technology is pretty close to "good enough" for how I'm using it. I look forward to the da…

I'd recommend Kimi k2.6 for your use. It is an excellent model at a fraction of the cost, and you can use Claude Code with it.

I did a 1:1 map of all my Claude Code skills, and it feels like I never left Opus.

Super happy with the results.

Re: I cancelled Claude: Token issues, declining quality, and poor support

#103
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels more and more like OpenAI/Anthoropic aren't the future but Qwen, Kimi, or Deepseek are. You can run them locally, but that isn't really the point, it is about democratization of service providers. You can run any of them on a dozen providers with different trade-offs/offerings OR locally. They won't ever be SOTA due to money, but "last year's SOTA" when it costs 1/4 or less, may be good enough . More quantit…

Open Source isn't even within 50% of what the SOTA models are. Benchmarks are toys, real world use is vastly different, and that's where they seriously lag. Why should anyone waste time on poorer results? I'd rather pay my $200/mo because my time matters. I'm not a poor college student anymore, and I need more return on my time. I'm not shitting on open weights here - I want open source to win. I just don't see how t…

There's going to be a day when we look back at $200/mo price tags and say "wow that was cheap".

The breakeven at this price is 6 minutes of productivity per work day for an engineer making $200k.

Re: I cancelled Claude: Token issues, declining quality, and poor support

#104
post #47

I feel like I'm using Claude Opus pretty effectively and I'm honestly not running up against limits in my mid-tier subscriptions. My workflow is more "copilot" than "autopilot", in that I craft prompts for contained tasks and review nearly everything, so it's pretty light compared to people doing vibe coding. The market-leading technology is pretty close to "good enough" for how I'm using it. I look forward to the da…

Honestly, it sounds like, assuming you have no ethical qualms, you could get by with a Mac or AMD 395+ and the newest models, specifically QWEN3.5-Coder-Next. It does exactly as you describe. It maxes out around 85k context, which if you do a good job providing guard rails, etc, is the length of a small-medium project. It does seem like the sweet spot between WallE and the destroyed earth in WallE.

Sorry, out of the loop. Which ethical qualms are you referring to?

Re: I cancelled Claude: Token issues, declining quality, and poor support

#106
post #102
post #47

I feel like I'm using Claude Opus pretty effectively and I'm honestly not running up against limits in my mid-tier subscriptions. My workflow is more "copilot" than "autopilot", in that I craft prompts for contained tasks and review nearly everything, so it's pretty light compared to people doing vibe coding. The market-leading technology is pretty close to "good enough" for how I'm using it. I look forward to the da…

I'd recommend Kimi k2.6 for your use. It is an excellent model at a fraction of the cost, and you can use Claude Code with it. I did a 1:1 map of all my Claude Code skills, and it feels like I never left Opus. Super happy with the results.

I was saying the same until DeepSeek v4 this morning... sorry, Kimi. The competition is intense!

Re: I cancelled Claude: Token issues, declining quality, and poor support

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they are making it harder to use it this way. Encouraging autonomous is one thing, but it really feels more like they are handicapping engaged use. I suspect it reflects their own development practices and needs.

This is something I've thought of as well. The way the caps are implemented, it really disincentivizes engaged use. The 5-hour window especially is very awkward and disruptive. The net result is that I have to somewhat plan my day around when the 5-hour window will affect it. That by itself is a powerful disincentive from using Claude. It has also caused me to use different tools for things I previously would have us…

Another big one for me is that they dropped the cache TTLs. It is normal for me to come back to a session an hour later, but someone "autopilot"-ing won't have such gaps.

Re: I cancelled Claude: Token issues, declining quality, and poor support

#109
post #102
post #47

I feel like I'm using Claude Opus pretty effectively and I'm honestly not running up against limits in my mid-tier subscriptions. My workflow is more "copilot" than "autopilot", in that I craft prompts for contained tasks and review nearly everything, so it's pretty light compared to people doing vibe coding. The market-leading technology is pretty close to "good enough" for how I'm using it. I look forward to the da…

I'd recommend Kimi k2.6 for your use. It is an excellent model at a fraction of the cost, and you can use Claude Code with it. I did a 1:1 map of all my Claude Code skills, and it feels like I never left Opus. Super happy with the results.

What provider do you use for Kimi

Re: I cancelled Claude: Token issues, declining quality, and poor support

#110
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Source isn't even within 50% of what the SOTA models are. Benchmarks are toys, real world use is vastly different, and that's where they seriously lag. Why should anyone waste time on poorer results? I'd rather pay my $200/mo because my time matters. I'm not a poor college student anymore, and I need more return on my time. I'm not shitting on open weights here - I want open source to win. I just don't see how t…

> Open Source isn't even within 50% of what the SOTA models are. When was the last time you used any of them? Because, a lot of people are actively using them for 9-5 work today, I count myself in that group. That opinion feels outdated, like it was formed a year ago+ and held onto. Or based on highly quantized versions and or small non-Thinking models. Do you really think Qwen3.6 for a specific example is "50%" as g…

Qwen3.6 at which model size and quantization? I already think Opus 4.6 is usable but still dumb as bricks. A 20% cut off that feels like it would still be unusable. And that's not even getting to the annoyance of setting everything up to run locally & getting HW that can run it locally which basically looks like a Macbook M4 these days as the x86 side is ridiculously pricey to get decent performance out of models.
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