Live data from Hacker News

Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use

code.claude.com

531–540 of 827 posts

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

#531
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They put no limits on the API usage, as long as you pay. Here, they put limits on the "under-cover" use of the subscription. If they can provide a relatively cheap subscription against the direct API use, this is because they can control the stuff end-to-end, the application running on your system (Claude Code, Claude Desktop) and their systems. As you subscribe to these plans, this is the "contract", you can use onl…

> If they can provide a relatively cheap subscription against the direct API use Except they can't. Their costs are not magically lower when you use claude code vs when you use a third-party client. > For me, this is fair. This is, plain and simple, a tie-in sale of claude code. I am particularly amused by people accepting it as "fair" because in Brazil this is an illegal practice.

> Their costs are not magically lower when you use claude code vs when you use a third-party client.

If subsidizing that offering is a good hook to get higher paying API users on board, then some of that cost is a customer aquisition cost, whereas the cost to them of providing the API doesn't have the same proportion that they can justify as a customer acquisition cost.

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

#532

I'm only waiting for OpenAI to provide an equivalet ~100 USD subscription to entirely ditch Claude. Opus has gone down the hill continously in the last week (and before you start flooding with replies, I've been testing opus/codex in parallel for the last week, I've plenty of examples of Claude going off track, then apologising, then saying "now it's all fixed!" and then only fixing part of it, when codex nailed at t…

OpenAI forces users to verify with their ID + face scan when using Codex 5.3 if any of your conversations was redeemed as high risk.

It seems like they currently have a lot of false positives: https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=High%20risk

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

#533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense, but this is the most predicable outcome ever. The software industry at large does this over and over again and somehow we're surprised. Provide thing for free or for cheap, and then slowly draw back availability once you have dominant market share or find yourself needing money (ahem). The providers want to control what AI does to make money or dominate an industry so they don't have to make their money b…

because it's easier than paying $50k for local llm setup that might not last 5 years.

[dead]

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

#534
post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they can provide a relatively cheap subscription against the direct API use Except they can't. Their costs are not magically lower when you use claude code vs when you use a third-party client. > For me, this is fair. This is, plain and simple, a tie-in sale of claude code. I am particularly amused by people accepting it as "fair" because in Brazil this is an illegal practice.

> Their costs are not magically lower when you use claude code vs when you use a third-party client. If subsidizing that offering is a good hook to get higher paying API users on board, then some of that cost is a customer aquisition cost, whereas the cost to them of providing the API doesn't have the same proportion that they can justify as a customer acquisition cost.

I absolutely have zero concerns about their cost to acquire new customers. As a (former) customer, all I am concerned is the freedom to consume the service I am paying for however I see fit.

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

#535

It might be some confirmation bias here on my part but it feels as if companies are becoming more and more hostile to their API users. Recently Spotify basically nuked their API with zero urgency to fix it, redit has a whole convoluted npm package your obliged to use to create a bot, Facebook requires you to provide registered company and tax details even for development with some permissions. Am I just old man screa…

Not sure how relevant this comment is

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

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are free to not use it. You are not free to use the API provided specifically for the product, which you are not explicitly paying for, for a different product. You can of course use OpenCode or any other project with the API, which is also offered as a separate product. People just don't want to do that because it's not subsidized, ie. more expensive. But the entire reason it's subsidized is that Anthropic can u…

> But the entire reason it's subsidized is that Anthropic can use the data to improve their product. This is grade A, absolute crap. It's subsidized because everyone else is subsidizing it, and everyone is doing it because they are trying to lock their consumer share. The solution is quite simple. Just get the FTC to forbid tie-in sales so that we don't get the huge corporations using their infinite resources to outl…

I'm fine with this as well. I just dislike everyone here presenting it like this is Anthropic being unreasonable. Given the product that is offered and why it's being offered, this is completely reasonable to do.

I don't use the Anthropic subscriptions either.

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

#537

Not according to this guy who works on Claude Code: https://x.com/trq212/status/2024212378402095389?s=20 What a PR nightmare, on top of an already bad week. I’ve seen 20+ people on X complaining about this and the related confusion.

They really need to correct that. I understand jack shit. Is openclaw banned under these terms? Or just abuse where I build a business on top of that? And why does it matter anyway? I have my token restrictions ... So let me do what I want.

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

#538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opus 4.6 genuinely seems worse than 4.5 was in Q4 2025 for me. I know everyone always says this and anecdote != data but this is the first time I've really felt it with a new model to the point where I still reach for the old one. I'll give GPT 5.3 codex a real try I think

I asked Codex 5.3 and Opus 4.6 to write me a macos application with a certain set of requirements. Opus 4.6 wrote me a working macos application. Codex wrote me a html + css mockup of a macos application that didn't even look like a macos application at all. Opus 4.5 was fine, but I feel that 4.6 is more often on the money on its implementations than 4.5 was. It is just slower.

Literally a skill issue.

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

#539

I'm only waiting for OpenAI to provide an equivalet ~100 USD subscription to entirely ditch Claude. Opus has gone down the hill continously in the last week (and before you start flooding with replies, I've been testing opus/codex in parallel for the last week, I've plenty of examples of Claude going off track, then apologising, then saying "now it's all fixed!" and then only fixing part of it, when codex nailed at t…

No developer writes the same prompt twice. How can you be sure something has changed?

Ralph Wiggum would like a word

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

#540
Product usage subsidized by company, $100. Users inevitably figure out how to steal those subsidies, agents go brrrrr. Users mad that subsidy stealing gets cut off and completely ignore why they need to rely on subsidies in the first place, priceless.
Post reply on HN