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Anthropic co-founder on cutting access to Windsurf

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Re: Anthropic co-founder on cutting access to Windsurf

#111
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Void is basically the same thing, but open source and better. It's easy to use with any provider API key, even LM Studio for local models. You can use it with free models available from OpenRouter to try it out, but the quality of output is just as dependent on the model as any other solution. https://voideditor.com/ https://github.com/voideditor/void

Have you used it? Haven't heard about it but tbh I can see how it would eventually outperform cursor and/or windsurf. As LLMS get better, and more background tasks etc, will come, I don't see a sustainably moat around IDEs generally (except switching cost, but if it is mostly vs code... ) saw you did below. What is your experience so far? fast requests are great. Anything big lacking? I was using roo code for a bit a…

>What is your experience so far?

I cancelled my Cursor subscription and haven't used it since. I experimented with Aider for a bit, it's also pretty great. Their architect mode seems to be the way of the future. It allows you to use a pricier model for its reasoning abilities, and it directs a cheaper model to make the code changes.

That said, I keep going back to Void because Aider's system prompts have a tendency to introduce problems. If Void had Aider's architect mode, it would be perfect.

Re: Anthropic co-founder on cutting access to Windsurf

#112
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, for sure. That's why I tried Cursor for a month. But as soon as I ran out of fast requests it became unusable. It had me waiting several minutes for the first token. I didn't realize how bad the experience was, fast requests included, until I used Void. It makes Cursor fast requests seem slow, and I tend to need fewer of them. The differences being that Void requests go straight to the provider instead of their…

How much do you spend per month on Void, though? Your testimonial is great but incomplete without that information.

That's fair. It is not the cheaper option, unless you use free or low cost models from a provider like OpenRouter. Of course, that comes with a performance hit. What I like about it is the flexibility. I run Devstral Small locally for easier tasks and it's free except for electricity. On the other hand, you can use up $20 with Gemini Pro in a couple hours with large contexts. Grok 3 mini has been a good middle ground- more capable than Devstral and less expensive than Gemini Pro.

So I tend to start with Devstral unless I know it will struggle, and then move on to paid models as needed. When I do switch to a paid provider, it's noticeably better than the same provider on a Cursor paid plan, so even though it's more expensive, I feel like there's more value there.

I honestly don't have a proper monthly tally yet. I've used $30 in OpenRouter credits over a couple weeks, but a lot of that was experimenting to compare quality of output.

Re: Anthropic co-founder on cutting access to Windsurf

#113
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might still. Why not? Illustrates a risk of building a product with these AI coding tools. If your developers don't know how to build applications without using AI, then you're at the mercy of the AI companies. You might come to work one day and find that accidentally or deliberately or as the result of a merger or acquisition that the tools you use are suddenly gone.

> If your developers don't know how to build applications without using AI, then you're at the mercy of the AI companies. The same can be said if your developers don't know how to build applications: - without using syntax highlighting ... - without using autocomplete ... - without using refactoring tools ... - without using a debugger ... Why do we not care about those? Because these are commodity features. LLMs are…

Those examples are all either zero cost or "buy once, use forever." How is that an argument against outsourcing your core competency to third party in perpetuity?

Re: Anthropic co-founder on cutting access to Windsurf

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more like about cutting you off reselling their bread, which would be reasonable.

Is it? Grocery and department stores routinely have brands that compete with those they resell — but they’re not cut off for that. Eg, Kroger operates its own bakery and resells bread. What makes technology unlike those?

I am not saying that reselling does not happen, obviously there is. But this doesn't disallow a bakery to stop selling to Kroger for resale if they do not want to. A company makes their own assessment if such deals are good for them or not. Anthropic determined that this deal is not good for them.

Re: Anthropic co-founder on cutting access to Windsurf

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more like about cutting you off reselling their bread, which would be reasonable.

By this logic NVIDIA should cut off Claude, because Claude is reselling their GPU hours, when NVIDIA itself can do it. IMHO, there are 3 types of products in current LLM space (excluding hardware): * Model makers - OpenAI, Claude, Gemini * Infra makers - Groq, together.ai and etc * Product makers - Cursor, Windsurf and others If Level 1 can block Level 3 this easily, that's a problem for industry in my book. Because…

Currently, the us government forces nvidia to cut all chinese companies out of their products. So definitely there are cases this happens. Is that also a problem in your book? Because if not, what is a problem in your book would be very subjective.

In the current example, we have a conglomerate between a level 1 (competitor) and a level 3 company, which lead this level 1 company to stop working with the specific level 3 company-part of the conglomerate. You cannot have your pie and eat it too. They could have chosen not to of course, but they chose this.

I think what would have been more problematic is if Antropic came to an exclusivity agreement with eg Cursor and then they made their models unavailable to all other platforms/products, in an attempt to monopolise the space. In this sense, the windsurf-openai relationship is what is actually problematic imo.

Re: Anthropic co-founder on cutting access to Windsurf

#116
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your developers don't know how to build applications without using AI, then you're at the mercy of the AI companies. The same can be said if your developers don't know how to build applications: - without using syntax highlighting ... - without using autocomplete ... - without using refactoring tools ... - without using a debugger ... Why do we not care about those? Because these are commodity features. LLMs are…

Those examples are all either zero cost or "buy once, use forever." How is that an argument against outsourcing your core competency to third party in perpetuity?

It's an argument against the original argument:

> you're at the mercy of the AI companies

You are not at the mercy of anyone. There are capable, open models that are self-hostable. For example, JetBrains IDEs come with a free local model [1] that runs on your CPU, which is exactly "buy once, use forever". If you want a bit more oomph a consumer level Nvidia GPU or Apple Silicon is sufficient.

> outsourcing your core competency to third party

I don't think my core competency is remembering obscure syntax, or being able to perform repetitive tasks. But if that's true, then I'm screwed anyway. My employer can simply pay an AI company 100 bucks a month and fire me. My own resistance against using LLMs won't change anything. The only logical thing to do would be to accept that my core competency is no longer valuable, and find another core competency.

[1] https://www.jetbrains.com/junie/

Re: Anthropic co-founder on cutting access to Windsurf

#117
post #34

Wow excited for when Anthropic buys Cursor in a couple months and I get locked out of using OpenAI models with it. This is depressing. I just want stuff to work.

How Cursor is building the future of AI coding with Claude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGgsoIgbT_Y
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