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Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

code.claude.com

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Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s very clearly a no, I don’t understand why so many people think this is unclear. You can’t use Claude OAuth tokens for anything. Any solution that exists worked because it pretended/spoofed to be Claude Code. Same for Gemini (Gemini CLI, Antigravity) Codex is the only one that got official blessing to be used in OpenClaw and OpenCode, and even that was against the ToS before they changed their stance on it.

Is Codex ok with any other third party applications, or just those?

Yes. You can build third party applications on top of codex app server. All open source. https://developers.openai.com/codex/app-server/

Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

#242
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if you wrap the service using their Agent SDK?

That should be fine, because it's still using their tooling. And this seems like the better way to go. I have a couple of tools that work like this. I think the issue is mostly 3rd party harnesses that seek to do the same as Claude Code. And it seems reasonable that Anthropic decides how you can use the subscription, because it's heavily subsidized. Get a Claude $200 sub and max out the usage limits, then compare that usage to the cost of using their API. The difference is significant, which is why people are getting multiple $200 subs rather than paying for API usage (and I have seen reports where they are cracking down on this as well.)

Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

#243
I wrote a mcp bridge so that I don't have to copy and paste prompt back and forth between CLI and claude, chatgpt, grok, gemini

https://github.com/agentify-sh/desktop

Does this mean I have to remove claude now and go back to copy & pasting prompts for a subscription I am paying for ?!

wth happened to fair use ?

Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

#244
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My crude metaphor to explain to my family is gasoline has just been invented and we're all being lent Bentley's to get us addicted to driving everywhere. Eventually we won't be given free Bentley's, and someone is going to be holding the bag when the infinite money machine finally has a hiccup. The tech giants are hoping their gasoline is the one that we all crave when we're left depending on driving everywhere and t…

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?

On consumer side looking at a few past generations I question that. I would guess that we are nearing some sort of plateau there or already on it. There was inflation, but still not even considering RAM prices from last jump gains relative to cost were not that massive.

Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And at that point, you might as well use OpenRouter's PKCE and give users the option to use other models.. These kinds of business decisions show how these $200.00 subscriptions for their slot/infinite jest machines basically light that $200.00 on fire, and in general how unsustainable these business models are. Can't wait for it all to fail, they'll eventually try to get as many people to pay per token as possible,…

I think the subscription pricing exists because it’s a far more palatable way to bill people for day to day personal use. I used Claude back when API per token pricing was the only option and it was bad for all the usual reasons pay-per-use sucks compared to flat billing: you’re constantly thinking about cost. Like trying to watch a Netflix video with a ticker in the corner counting up the cents you owe them. I don’t…

The bundle only works if it’s +EV for them. A lot of analyses (though not all - it’s complicated) say that the $200/mo bundle (and certainly the $20/mo bundle) costs more than that for most users, and the bundle is currently a loss leader. If so, then eventually prices will need to go up, and API per usage pricing will seem much more attractive.

Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are smart making a distinction between a D2C subscription which they control the interface to and eat the losses for vs B2B use where they pay for what they use. Allows them to optimize their clients and use private APIs for exclusive features etc. and there’s really no reason to bootstrap other wannabe AI companies who just stick a facade experience in front of Anthropic’s paying customer.

> eat the losses Look at your token usage of the last 30 days in one of the JSON files generated by Claude Code. Compare that against API costs for Opus. Tell me if they are eating losses or not. I'm not making a point, actually do it and let me know. I was at 1 million. I'm paying 90 EUR/m. That means I'm subsidizing them (paying 3-4 times what it would cost with the API)! And I feel like I'm a pretty heavy user. Al…

I just ran some numbers and it works out if you're a prolific user.

Over 9 days I would have spent roughly $63 dollars on Codex with 11.5M input tokens plus 141M cached input tokens and 1.3M output tokens.

That roughly mirrors the $100-200/wk in API spending that drove me to the subscription.

  | Category | Tokens | Rate (/1M) | Estimated Cost |
  |---|---:|---:|---:|
  | Input (uncached) | 11,568,331 | $1.75 | $20.24 |
  | Cached input | 141,566,720 | $0.175 | $24.77 |
  | Output | 1,301,078 | $14.00 | $18.22 |
  | Total | 154,436,129 | — | $63.23 |

BUT... like a typical gym user. This is a 30/d window and I only used it for 9 days, $63 worth. OpenAI kept the other $137.

It makes sense though for heavy use.

Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

#247
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GB300 NVL72 is 50% more expensive than GB200 I've heard.

Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

#248
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s very clearly a no, I don’t understand why so many people think this is unclear. You can’t use Claude OAuth tokens for anything. Any solution that exists worked because it pretended/spoofed to be Claude Code. Same for Gemini (Gemini CLI, Antigravity) Codex is the only one that got official blessing to be used in OpenClaw and OpenCode, and even that was against the ToS before they changed their stance on it.

But why does it matter which program consumes the tokens?

Why does it matter to the free buffet manager where do you consume the food? We may never know.

Re: Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

#249
post #238

Your core customers are clearly having a blast building their own custom interfaces, so obviously the thing to do is update TOS and put a stop to it! Good job lol. I know, I know, customer experience, ecosystem, gardens, moats, CC isn't fat, just big boned, I get it. Still a dick move. This policy is souring the relationship, and basically saying that Claude isn't a keeper. I'll keep my eye-watering sub for now becau…

Imagine having a finite pool of GPUs worth more than their weight in gold, and an infinite pool of users obsessed with running as many queries against those GPUs in parallel as possible, mostly to review and generate copious amounts of spam content primarily for the purposes of feeling modern, and all in return for which they offer you $20 per month. If you let them, you must incur as much credit liability as OpenAI.…

Why do you fundamentally dislike him as a person?

The only thing I've seen from him that I don't like is the "SWEs will be replaced" line (which is probably true and it's more that I don't like the factuality of it).

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