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Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

claude.com

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Re: Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

#51

Post by dec0dedab0de »

skybrian wrote: post #25
japhyr wrote: post #19

At first I thought people here were being pretty unsympathetic to an early version of a beneficial program. I could see a company setting a 6-month timeline initially, so they can reevaluate the program and choose how to evolve their support for open source. I expected to see something along the lines of, "at the end of the 6 months we'll evaluate whether to continue your free plan." But no, they're quite explicit ab…

So put a reminder on your calendar to cancel. It's not hard. That shouldn't be a reason to pass this up.

That never works for me. I try to only sign up for things that I can cancel immediately and continue to use for the rest of whatever time period I signed up for.

Instead of potentially getting billed for some trial I forgot about, I would rather pay for a month, immediately cancel, and then repeat every month when I realize it's not working.

Besides helping me keep my expenses under control, it doubles as an evaluation of the company. If they make it difficult to cancel, or do not let me use the rest of my paid time, I know they are not a company I want to do business with.

Re: Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

#52

Post by cperciva »

mittermayr wrote: post #20
cperciva wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing that this is an initial trial and they're intending to extend it further; 6 months is a reasonable trial period given the very rough metric for deciding who qualifies.

> Your complimentary subscription will expire at the end of the Benefit Period. After expiration, any existing subscription will continue unless you cancel. You may independently choose to purchase a paid Claude subscription at the then-current price through Anthropic’s standard signup process. https://www.anthropic.com/claude-for-oss-terms

Sure. They're still figuring out exactly how to decide who qualifies for this -- seriously, 5000 github stars or 1M monthly NPM downloads? -- and they don't want to make long-term promises to people who might not qualify under future better-thought-out rules.

That doesn't mean they're not going to continue this, it just means they're being careful not to make promises which they'll want to roll back later.

Re: Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

#53

Post by Ntrails »

hugh-avherald wrote: post #41
japhyr wrote: post #19

At first I thought people here were being pretty unsympathetic to an early version of a beneficial program. I could see a company setting a 6-month timeline initially, so they can reevaluate the program and choose how to evolve their support for open source. I expected to see something along the lines of, "at the end of the 6 months we'll evaluate whether to continue your free plan." But no, they're quite explicit ab…

This does not strike me as an anti-pattern or ugly. Indefinite free period would be unreasonable, and automatically kicking a user off would also probably be bad. A $200 bill shock is not great but it's also at a size that won't cause enormous distress while simultaneously being noticeable enough that you won't pay more than a month over. (As an open-source maintainer already on a Max plan, I still wince every month.…

> automatically kicking a user off would also probably be bad.

No. "Sorry, subscription has expired, please re-up your account" is an extremely reasonable UX.

The whole "free period but we'll auto bill you after" is a shitty dark pattern that mostly exists to extract value from life admin errors. The people who got enough value to justify the cost would've paid anyway.

Re: Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

#54

Post by kazinator »

ashtonshears wrote: post #33
skybrian wrote: post #24

The cynicism here is crazy. You can get a lot done in 6 months and prices will probably have dropped by then due to competition. There's no lock-in keeping you from switching coding agents if you're not stupid about it. There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of limited offers.

Most people are sick of free trial scams, its incredibly pervasive. Its only a gift if there is no automated renewal, a scummy ad otherwise

But the application form isn't asking for credit card info. (Does anyone know whether they ask for that later in the approval process?)

In any case, the fine print says that participants have to purchase after the expiration of the free period in order to to continue. Nothing is mentioned about having to give payment info upfront, such that the account automatically transitions to payment.

Participants who are already paying customers will have their payments suspended for that period, so I think for them it will automatically lapse back to paid, at least if their payment method is up-to-date.

Re: Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

#55

Post by japhyr »

mwigdahl wrote: post #43
japhyr wrote: post #19

At first I thought people here were being pretty unsympathetic to an early version of a beneficial program. I could see a company setting a 6-month timeline initially, so they can reevaluate the program and choose how to evolve their support for open source. I expected to see something along the lines of, "at the end of the 6 months we'll evaluate whether to continue your free plan." But no, they're quite explicit ab…

This does not appear to be true if you read the earlier "Activation" section. If you have an existing subscription, it pauses while the free period is active. After that free period, your existing subscription resumes. As I read it, there is no "auto-subscribe" after the free period ends -- you just revert back to whatever you had before (or nothing, if you weren't a subscriber before). If I'm reading it wrong, let m…

I think you are right. I'll edit my comment to point to this.

Re: Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

#56

Post by startupsfail »

dmix wrote: post #50
japhyr wrote: post #19

At first I thought people here were being pretty unsympathetic to an early version of a beneficial program. I could see a company setting a 6-month timeline initially, so they can reevaluate the program and choose how to evolve their support for open source. I expected to see something along the lines of, "at the end of the 6 months we'll evaluate whether to continue your free plan." But no, they're quite explicit ab…

Tons of SaaS companies offer open source projects free periods or a limited hobby plan for free. Claude is offering a professional plan 20x'd for a free period. I don't see anything wrong with that. This is a far more resource expensive service to offer for free than 99% of SaaS companies.

This potentially can be a supply chain attack at a massive scale.

Re: Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

#57

Post by Robdel12 »

I really appreciate the gesture, but this kind of feels like it’s an attempt to claw (lol) some good will back from devs. The barrier is way too high, imo. And the 6 month cap does make sense given the cost of LLMs but it’s a bad feeling. We like you, but for 6 months.

As a tinnnyy plug, I’ve ran OSS sponsorship programs before for companies. One thing that I always hated was the sales contact process to get it. So, for Vizzly I made it 100% automated. Sign up, connect an OSS public repo, get a free plan. https://vizzly.dev/open-source/ I don’t wanna talk to you and you don’t wanna talk to me (for this :p)

Re: Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

#58

Post by skybrian »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #51
skybrian wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So put a reminder on your calendar to cancel. It's not hard. That shouldn't be a reason to pass this up.

That never works for me. I try to only sign up for things that I can cancel immediately and continue to use for the rest of whatever time period I signed up for. Instead of potentially getting billed for some trial I forgot about, I would rather pay for a month, immediately cancel, and then repeat every month when I realize it's not working. Besides helping me keep my expenses under control, it doubles as an evaluati…

That seems like a decent strategy too.

Re: Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

#59

Post by kazinator »

japhyr wrote: post #55
mwigdahl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not appear to be true if you read the earlier "Activation" section. If you have an existing subscription, it pauses while the free period is active. After that free period, your existing subscription resumes. As I read it, there is no "auto-subscribe" after the free period ends -- you just revert back to whatever you had before (or nothing, if you weren't a subscriber before). If I'm reading it wrong, let m…

I think you are right. I'll edit my comment to point to this.

Even if they did let the free users continue using, and then preesnted them with invoices, those would mean nothing without a registered, up-to-date payment method on file.

I mean, pay this invoice ... or else what?

Re: Get free Claude max 20x for open-source maintainers

#60

Post by skybrian »

japhyr wrote: post #45
skybrian wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So put a reminder on your calendar to cancel. It's not hard. That shouldn't be a reason to pass this up.

You're absolutely right that some individuals will be able to sign up for this program, and remember to cancel at the end of the six months. However, when companies choose to implement a policy like this they're acting on well-established statistics. They know that a meaningful percentage of people will forget to cancel, and the company will end up with increased revenue. There might be a bit of good will here, but i…

It seems like the average payoff is not so relevant if you have good reason to believe you can do better than average. Also, I'm not so sure Anthropic would profit from this particular offer in the average case.

I recently downgraded from Opus to Sonnet because it's 40% cheaper and it needs a bit more guidance but seems doable. There will likely be better deals.

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