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Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

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Re: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

#361

Post by Majromax »

elAhmo wrote: post #263
iamkonstantin wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's ridiculous is that the subscription at 180€/month (excl. VAT) is already absurdly expensive for what you get. I doubt many would sign up for the per-API usage as it's just not sustainable pricing (as a user).

This take is ridiculous. Nearly everyone who uses Max agrees that what they get for the money paid is an amazing deal. If you don't use or understand how LLMs fit in your workflows, you are not the target customer. But for people who use it daily, it is a relatively small investment compared to the time saved.

> If you don't use or understand how LLMs fit in your workflows, you are not the target customer.

I feel like this is a major area of divergence. The "vibes" are bifurcating between "coding agents are great!" and "coding agents are all hype!", with increasing levels of in-group communication.

How should I, an agent-curious user, begin to unravel this mess if $200 is significantly more than pocket change? The pro-agent camp remarks that these frontier models are qualitatively better and using older/cheaper approaches would give a misleading impression, so "buy the discount agent" doesn't even seem like a reasonable starting point.

Re: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

#362

Post by fc417fc802 »

vovavili wrote: post #334
dheatov wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the actual price for many user is closer to 1k USD/mth than to 200 USD/mth, and the actual price is closer to their target margin to be a viable business, they're practically subsidising usage after 200 USD/mth. Together with other AI-TECH doing the same, they fabricate a false sense of "AI is capable AND affordable", which imo is evil.

There is nothing evil about prioritizing customer acquisition over immediate profit.

And yet in many cases there are regulations against it. Almost as though behavior that warps the market is generally undesirable.

Re: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

#363

Post by vovavili »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #362
vovavili wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing evil about prioritizing customer acquisition over immediate profit.

And yet in many cases there are regulations against it. Almost as though behavior that warps the market is generally undesirable.

Give me an example of one such regulation.

Re: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

#364

Post by altmanaltman »

danmaz74 wrote: post #300
dfabulich wrote: post #112

For folks not following the drama: Anthropic's $200/month subscription for Claude Code is much cheaper than Anthropic's pay-as-you-go API. In a month of Claude Code, it's easy to use so many LLM tokens that it would have cost you more than $1,000 if you'd paid via the API. Why is Anthropic offering such favorable pricing to subscribers? I dunno. But they really want you to use the Claude Code™ CLI with that subscript…

> More importantly, Anthropic should have open sourced their Claude Code CLI a year ago. (They can and should just open source it now.) "Should have" for what reason? I would be happy if they open sourced Claude Code, but the reality is that Claude Code is what makes Anthropic so relevant in the programming more, much more than the Claude models themselves. Asking them to give it away for free to their competitors se…

> the reality is that Claude Code is what makes Anthropic so relevant in the programming more, much more than the Claude models themselves

but Claude Code cannot run without Claude models? What do you mean?

Re: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

#365

Post by tempaccount420 »

msten wrote: post #346

This makes total sense to me. Limiting the usage to their tooling means they can place reasonable limits on usage by controlling how the client interacts with the LLM and making those calls as efficient as possible. The current state of things didn't really feel sustainable.

They can and already place limits on the server side.

Re: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

#366

Post by Majromax »

MeetingsBrowser wrote: post #93
brainless wrote: post #29

I know this will sound strange, but SOTA model companies will eventually allow subscription based usage through third-party tools. For any usage whatsoever. Models are pretty much democratized. I use Claude Code and opencode and I get more work done these days with GLM or Grok Code (using opencode). Z.ai (GLM) subscription is so worth it. Also, mixing models, small and large ones, is the way to go. Different models f…

Wouldn't this mean SOTA model companies are incentivized not to allow subscriptions through third parties? If all the models are interchangeable at the API layer, wouldn't they be incentivized to add value at the next level up and lock people in there to prevent customers from moving to competitors on a whim.

> If all the models are interchangeable at the API layer, wouldn't they be incentivized to add value at the next level up

Just the other day, a 2016 article was reposted here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46514816] on the 'stack fallacy', where companies who are experts in their domain repeatedly try and fail to 'move up the value chain' by offering higher-level products or services. The fallacy is that these companies underestimate the essential compexities of the higher-level and approach the problem with arrogance.

That would seem to apply here. Why should a model-building company have any unique skill at building higher-level integration?

If their edge comes from having the best model, they should commoditize the complement and make it as easy as possible for everyone to use (and pay for) their model. The standard API allows them to do just this, offering 'free' benefits from community integrations and multi-domain tasks.

If their edge does not come from the model – if the models are interchangeable in performance and not just API – then the company will have deeper problems justifying its existing investments and securing more funding. A moat of high-level features might help plug a few leaks, but this entire field is too new to have the kind of legacy clients that keep old firms like IBM around.

Re: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

#367

Post by fc417fc802 »

vovavili wrote: post #363
fc417fc802 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet in many cases there are regulations against it. Almost as though behavior that warps the market is generally undesirable.

Give me an example of one such regulation.

Are you sure you're participating in good faith? I'll go ahead and indulge you for the benefit of the audience though.

The generic term is predatory pricing and it's regulated to some extent in pretty much every country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing#Legal_aspect...

When carried out at the international level it's known as dumping. The WTO has provisions against it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)#Legal...

Re: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

#368

Post by conception »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #88
conception wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they get telemetry, feedback, good will, etc. That’s one reason why usage is discounted to a subscription fee.

Good will, huh?

You don’t think Claude Code has generated good will for Anthropic? People just liking a brand is powerful.

Re: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

#369

Post by CuriouslyC »

conception wrote: post #368
CuriouslyC wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good will, huh?

You don’t think Claude Code has generated good will for Anthropic? People just liking a brand is powerful.

I don't think this move is generating good will.

Re: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions

#370

Post by boh »

altmanaltman wrote: post #364
danmaz74 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More importantly, Anthropic should have open sourced their Claude Code CLI a year ago. (They can and should just open source it now.) "Should have" for what reason? I would be happy if they open sourced Claude Code, but the reality is that Claude Code is what makes Anthropic so relevant in the programming more, much more than the Claude models themselves. Asking them to give it away for free to their competitors se…

> the reality is that Claude Code is what makes Anthropic so relevant in the programming more, much more than the Claude models themselves but Claude Code cannot run without Claude models? What do you mean?

Relative to their competitors who also have comparable models, Anthropic's design choices in effectively managing context with a very well thought out and coherent design, makes them stand out.
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