OK I hope someone from anthropic reads this. Your API billing makes it really hard to work with it in India. We've had to switch to openrouter because anthropic keeps rejecting all the cards we have tried. And these are major Indian banks. This has been going on for MONTHS
Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
171–180 of 827 posts
Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
#172I don't think it's a secret that AI companies are losing a ton of money on subscription plans. Hence the stricter rate limits, new $200+ plans, push towards advertising etc. The real money is in per-token billing via the API (and large companies having enough AI FOMO that they blindly pay the enormous invoices every month).
Why do you think they're losing money on subscriptions?
Because they're not saying they are making a profit
Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
c) it is controlled by a direct competitor and can bury / promote your customer communication at will.
Elon has enough sense not to cross that particular bridge.
He was quick to ban links to Mastodon when it was on the rise, I'm not sure why he'd treat SpaceX/xAI competitors any differently.
Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're losing money on this $200 plan and they're essentially paying you to make you dependent on Claude Code so they can exploit this (somehow) in the future.
It's a bizarre plan because nobody is 'dependent' on Claude Code; we're begging to use alternatives. It's the model we want!
You’re not really paying for the model, you’re paying for the tool, the ecosystem, and the application layer around it.
Sonnet 4.6 in CC doesn’t behave the same way as Sonnet 4.6 in Antigravity.
Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
#175I don't think it's a secret that AI companies are losing a ton of money on subscription plans. Hence the stricter rate limits, new $200+ plans, push towards advertising etc. The real money is in per-token billing via the API (and large companies having enough AI FOMO that they blindly pay the enormous invoices every month).
Depends on how you do the accounting. Are you counting inference costs or are you amortizing next gen model dev costs. "Inference is profitable" is oft repeated and rarely challenged. Most subscription users are low intensity users after all.
Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
#176I really hope someone from any of those companies (if possible all of them) would publish a very clear statement regarding the following question: If I build a commercial app that allows my users to connect using their OAuth token coming from their ChatGPT/Claude etc. account, do they allow me (and their users) to do this or not? I totally understand that I should not reuse my own account to provide services to other…
I don't see how they can get more clear about this, considering they have repeatedly answered it the exact same way. Subscriptions are for first-party products (claude.com, mobile and desktop apps, Claude Code, editor extensions, Cowork). Everything else must use API billing.
Quick question but what if I use claude code itself for the purpose?
https://github.com/rivet-dev/sandbox-agent/tree/main/gigacod... [I saw this inShow HN: Gigacode – Use OpenCode's UI with Claude Code/Codex/Amp] (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912682)
This can make Opencode work with Claude code and the added benefit of this is that Opencode has a Typescript SDK to automate and the back of this is still running claude code so technically should work even with the new TOS?
So in the case of the OP. Maybe Opencode TS SDK claude code (using this tool or any other like this) It uses the oauth sign in option of Claude code users?
Also, zed can use the ACP protocol itself as well to make claude code work iirc. So is using zed with CC still allowed?
> I don't see how they can get more clear about this, considering they have repeatedly answered it the exact same way.
This is confusing quite frankly, there's also the claude agent sdk thing which firloop and others talked about too. Some say its allowed or not. Its all confusing quite frankly.
Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think they're losing money on subscriptions?
Because they're not saying they are making a profit
That doesn’t mean that the subscription itself is losing money. The margin on the subscription could be fine, but by using that margin to R&D the next model, the org may still be intentionally unprofitable. It’s their investment/growth strategy, not an indictment of their pricing strategy.
Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
#178Their model actually doesn't have that much of a moat if at all. Their agent harness also doesn't, at least not for long. Writing an agent harness isn't that difficult. They are desperately trying to stay in power. I don´t like being a customer of this company and am investing lots of my time in moving away from them completely.
Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
#179I really hope someone from any of those companies (if possible all of them) would publish a very clear statement regarding the following question: If I build a commercial app that allows my users to connect using their OAuth token coming from their ChatGPT/Claude etc. account, do they allow me (and their users) to do this or not? I totally understand that I should not reuse my own account to provide services to other…
Does https://happy.engineering/ need to use the API keys or can use oauth? It's basically a frontend for claude-cli.
It doesn't even touch auth right?
""" Usage policy
Acceptable use Claude Code usage is subject to the Anthropic Usage Policy. Advertised usage limits for Pro and Max plans assume ordinary, individual usage of Claude Code and the Agent SDK """
That tool clearly falls under ordinary individual use of Claude code. https://yepanywhere.com/ is another such tool. Perfectly ordinary individual usage.
https://yepanywhere.com/sdk-auth-clarification.html
The TOS are confusing because just below that section it talks about authentication/credential use. If an app starts reading api keys / credentials, that starts falling into territory where they want a hard line no.
Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Computers and anything computer related have historically been dropping in prices like crazy year after year (with only very occasional hiccups). What makes you think this will stop now?
Commodity hardware and software will continue to drop in price. Enterprise products with sufficient market share and "stickiness", will not. For historical precedent, see the commercial practices of Oracle, Microsoft, Vmware, Salesforce, at the height of their power.
> Commodity hardware and software will continue to drop in price.
The software is free (citation: Cuda, nvcc, llvm, olama/llama cpp, linux, etc)
The hardware is *not* getting cheaper (unless we're talking a 5+ year time) as most manufacturers are signaling the current shortages will continue ~24 months.