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Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive

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Re: Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive

#141

Post by fluidcruft »

krupan wrote: post #69
porridgeraisin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bubble is _not_ on models becoming more intelligent and solving arc-agi-999. They are already good enough at what they mechanically are. You have to use the right harness, right verifiers (automatic where possible, human where not), etc much much more specific than a generic one like claude code or codex, and it will also be able to work within constraints and be the "proposer" of an imaginary optimisation proble…

The bubble is based on the promise that these LLMs will cure cancer and find the solution to global warming. The pragmatic users of these tools (like you seem to be) are enjoying the subsidized use of the tools right now, but it's not a sustainable business model

Are you sure the bubble isn't riding on the idea that satisfying the electricity demands will bring fusion to the world?

Re: Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive

#142

Post by Retr0id »

bitexploder wrote: post #112
bentt wrote: post #27

They've put themselves in a corner. Fable was too good and they gave it away with the $20 plan. It had to be a big step from Opus 4.8 to show progress, and Opus 4.8 is GREAT at coding in many different domains. But they're getting killed on token cost. They have to get people paying more for tokens. So then they put Fable in the $200 plan and release Opus 5. I'm suspicious of Opus 5. It is mostly worse than 4.8. It _…

I kind of still chill out on Opus 4.6 too. 4.8 is good too. I go between them. Opus 4.8 is a little smarter some of the time. Their use of language is both very different from Opus 5. Some of the time I have a hard time believing Opus 5 is even related to Opus 4.6 and 4.8.

I'm going to be sad when they retire 4.6. It's not my daily driver but it's still my go-to when the other models are being stupid in one way or another (either being too verbose, or lecturing me about how what I'm asking for is evil and bad).

Re: Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive

#143

Post by adriand »

fluidcruft wrote: post #125
a1371 wrote: post #113

Where Anthropic f'ed up was treating their monetization the way they treat model training. Turns out that success in experimentation is not transferrable. They have tried to find the highest that the market pays for sota models; however, on the consumer side, this is just too confusing and unsettling: "You can only use Fable for a week as a part of your plan" "Be ready! You have to start paying per token!" "Nevermind…

Yeah, I agree with this. The constant state of "...will the rug be pulled?!?" does discourage relying on it as a model and building a workflow on it. Anthropic used to just be a reliable thing you could play with. Now it's this constant source of anxiety. It also didn't help that the government yanked it which adds another source of anxiety since OpenAI is on much better terms with the administration and the administ…

As soon as I started using Fable I was like, okay, this is probably as good a model as I will need for software engineering going forward. I still feel that way. I don’t need a better model, I need a faster Fable.

The thing I miss most about programming is flow, and the constant bouncing between terminal tabs sucks. I’d love to do one thing at a time, with Fable, quickly.

Re: Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive

#145

Post by tokai »

tyleo wrote: post #6
felixgallo wrote: post #5

[flagged]

I almost feel like there's some sort of paid campaign going on in Hacker News promoting the Chinese/open models. I feel like every day I'm hearing about how the frontier labs are dead but your experience is the same as mine. My company pays for Claude AND Codex but we never really use the open models for anything critical.

[dead]

Re: Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive

#146

Post by pertymcpert »

Retr0id wrote: post #142
bitexploder wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of still chill out on Opus 4.6 too. 4.8 is good too. I go between them. Opus 4.8 is a little smarter some of the time. Their use of language is both very different from Opus 5. Some of the time I have a hard time believing Opus 5 is even related to Opus 4.6 and 4.8.

I'm going to be sad when they retire 4.6. It's not my daily driver but it's still my go-to when the other models are being stupid in one way or another (either being too verbose, or lecturing me about how what I'm asking for is evil and bad).

I tested all recent Opus versions and 4.6 and 4.7 were both fine FWIW. Seems 4.8 is when something started to go wrong.

Re: Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive

#147

Post by apparent »

I have a $20/mo subscription and have found myself getting limited every few minutes of late. I'm just building a simple website, but after about 15-20 mins of back-and-forth, it tells me I'm tapped out for another 5 hours.

This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't make mistakes periodically, especially when it's about to tap out. I get the sense that if I upgraded to the $200 subscription it would get me a lot more usage, but it would still run into these issues anytime I sat down to work for a few hours.

I'm just using medium effort, so it's not like I'm on high all the time.

Re: Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive

#148

Post by YuechenLi »

hodgehog11 wrote: post #104
YuechenLi wrote: post #11

Fable is just way too expensive and limited compared to GPT 5.6 Sol, and the only task that requires that level of intelligence is frontier scientific research. I use GPT/Codex primarily for coding and usually keep Claude on Sonnet 5 most of the time as I use Claude primarily to debug/brainstorm/make frontends as a supplement to GPT.

In a frontier scientific research environment, funding is often limited, so personal subscriptions are more common. Fable can hit a 5-hour usage limit on the Max subscription tier before it finishes a single complex math prompt . Most of the time you get one or two if you reduce context and question complexity. Most of my colleagues are cancelling their subscriptions because of that, and just using Sol instead, which…

Hmm. Would you mind sharing an example of a complex math prompt that you would use? Because I found that even Sonnet can solve fairly complex math problems fairly easily if you give it the right tools, so I'd like to give it a shot myself if you'd like.

Re: Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive

#150

Post by hparadiz »

dannyw wrote: post #135
a1371 wrote: post #113

Where Anthropic f'ed up was treating their monetization the way they treat model training. Turns out that success in experimentation is not transferrable. They have tried to find the highest that the market pays for sota models; however, on the consumer side, this is just too confusing and unsettling: "You can only use Fable for a week as a part of your plan" "Be ready! You have to start paying per token!" "Nevermind…

I agree they’ve done a bit too many pricing / usage promotions and A/B tests. The period was also marked with many billing bugs, like spending people’s usage credits for included Fable for a few hours (gave me a huge shock), but to their credit they refunded it.

They are fumbling the bag hard. AI's utility is for general purpose. The floor is rapidly improving from below them. With chatgpt I'm uploading all my day to day stuff. Meanwhile Claude is only for occasional super hard tech problems which are rapidly improving with being solvable easily by Sol. So what's the value add?

Their disrespect for their users is also another problem. You only get one shot to make a good impression.

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