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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

#261

Post by zdragnar »

gbear605 wrote: post #245
hombre_fatal wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even if it more expensive, people will prefer subscription pricing over pay per use.

When you ask it to do something and it goes off the rails, the payment plans have wildly different effects:

Subscription- oh well, let's try again with a different prompt

Pay per use- I just wasted money, this product sucks

Even if it is less common than not, it has an outsized impact on how people feel using it.

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

#262

Post by nostromo »

chickensong wrote: post #231

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…

They'll all do this eventually.

We're in the part of the market cycle where everyone fights for marketshare by selling dollar bills for 50 cents.

When a winner emerges they'll pull the rug out from under you and try to wall off their garden.

Anthropic just forgot that we're still in the "functioning market competition" phase of AI and not yet in the "unstoppable monopoly" phase.

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

#264

Post by Bolwin »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #195
vldszn wrote: post #125

At this point, are there decent alternatives to Anthropic models for coding that allow third-party usage?

Kimi is amazing for this. They offer API usage as well iirc if you buy their subscription.

Not regular api usage, just the kimi coding plan, which you can only use in some coding agents

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

#265

Post by bonesss »

somenameforme wrote: post #127
sambull wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

these subscriptions have limits.. how could someone use $200 worth on $20/month.. is that not the issue with the limits they set on a $20 plan, and couldn't a claude code user use that same $200 worth on $20/month? (and how do i do this?)

I'd agree on this. I ended up picking up a Claude Pro sub and am very less than impressed at the volume allowance. I generally get about a dozen queries (including simple follow up/refinements/corrections) across a relatively small codebase, with prompts structured to minimize the parts of the code touched - and moving onto fresh contexts fairly rapidly, before getting cut off for their ~5 hour window. Doing that ~tw…

Bumping into those limits is trivial, those 5 hour windows are anxiety inducing, and I guess the idea is to have a credit card on tap to pay for overages but…

I’m messing around on document production, I can’t imagine being on a crunch facing a deadline or dealing with a production issue and 1) seeing some random fuck-up eat my budget with no take backs (‘sure thing, I’ll make a custom docx editor to open that…’), 2) having to explain to my boss why Thursday cost $500 more than expected because of some library mismatch, or 3) trying to decide whether we’re gonna spend or wait while stressing some major issue (the LLM got us in it, so we kinda need the LLM to get us out).

That’s a lot of extra shizz on top of already tricky situations.

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

#266

Post by DrammBA »

KingMob wrote: post #189
croes wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why does it matter which program consumes the tokens?

Presumably because their flat rate pricing is based off their ability to manage token use via their first-party tools. A third-party tool may be less efficient in saving costs (I have heard many of them don't hit Anthropic LLMs' caches as well). Would you be willing to pay more for your plan, to subsidize the use of third-party tools by others? --- Note, afaik, Anthropic hasn't come out and said this is the reason, b…

But wouldn't a less efficient tool simply consume your 5-hour/weekly quota faster? There's gotta be something else, probably telemetry, maybe hoping people switch to API without fighting, or simply vendor lock-in.

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

#267

Post by bambax »

nostromo wrote: post #262
chickensong wrote: post #231

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…

They'll all do this eventually. We're in the part of the market cycle where everyone fights for marketshare by selling dollar bills for 50 cents. When a winner emerges they'll pull the rug out from under you and try to wall off their garden. Anthropic just forgot that we're still in the "functioning market competition" phase of AI and not yet in the "unstoppable monopoly" phase.

Unstoppable monopoly will be extremely hard to pull off given the number of quality open (weights) alternatives.

I only use LLMs through OpenRouter and switch somewhat randomly between frontier models; they each have some amount of personality but I wouldn't mind much if half of them disappeared overnight, as long as the other half remained available.

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

#268

Post by nostromo »

bambax wrote: post #267
nostromo wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll all do this eventually. We're in the part of the market cycle where everyone fights for marketshare by selling dollar bills for 50 cents. When a winner emerges they'll pull the rug out from under you and try to wall off their garden. Anthropic just forgot that we're still in the "functioning market competition" phase of AI and not yet in the "unstoppable monopoly" phase.

Unstoppable monopoly will be extremely hard to pull off given the number of quality open (weights) alternatives. I only use LLMs through OpenRouter and switch somewhat randomly between frontier models; they each have some amount of personality but I wouldn't mind much if half of them disappeared overnight, as long as the other half remained available.

I'm old, so I remember saying the same thing about Google and search.

I hope you're right!

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

#269

Post by andersmurphy »

mirzap wrote: post #155
paxys wrote: post #31

I 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).

They are not losing money on subscription plans. Inference is very cheap - just a few dollars per million tokens. What they’re trying to do is bundle R&D costs with inference so they can fund the training of the next generation of models. Banning third-party tools has nothing to do with rate limits. They’re trying to position themselves as the Apple of AI companies -a walled garden. They may soon discover that screwi…

Except all those GPUs running inference need to be replaced every 2 years.
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