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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

#811

Post by skeledrew »

rglullis wrote: post #810
skeledrew wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, there's no tie-in sale[0] as you do not pay for the apps. And particularly, there's no real competition angle[1] as the market is loaded with LLM service providers, not to mention downloadable options. There's a reason in this particular case why the particular APIs aren't documented: they aren't intended for public use. And they've made it crystal clear, so all you have to do now is take your wallet somewhere…

> as the market is loaded with LLM service providers The LLMs are not commodities. The program that interfaces with them are. > they aren't intended for public use. It was available at first, it made possible for people to use the LLM model without having to use their specific CLI tool. It's a bait-and-switch. > You have no case here. I don't need to have a legal case here to keep thinking it's a morally dsgusting pr…

They're commodities to an appreciable extent. They all do generally the same thing, with the differing factor being output quality.

People can still use their model without using their CLI. Use the API that they've provided for such. They didn't break the agreement that they made; they clarified the terms of their existing agreement.

There's nothing morally disgusting here. They're providing a service that they've poured a lot of effort into, in a way that's (hopefully) sustainable while being valuable to users. There's significant cost involved, which must be footed by those who value and use the service. They found a way to offer a discount for some of that cost, providing even greater value, but it has a condition which is possibly directly connected to their ability to provide that discount. And you want to benefit from that discount and avoid that condition.

I have no horses here; heck I wish they could offer it all completely free. But the reality is that there's ongoing cost to them in research, hardware, electricity, etc that has to be paid. And unlike many other large companies out there, they're providing something seriously valuable (you wouldn't be complaining so passionately if it wasn't), and they haven't enshittified it (unlike what the other large player is increasingly doing, but that's actually also understandable to a point). What I see here is you - as in all who want discount without condition - acting in a way that, if allowed, will very likely lead to the detriment of the service, which I definitely don't want to happen as that'll leave the market worse off. If you like the value so much that you find it next to impossible to stay away, then you should be happily following their agreement to the letter, and lean toward paying the full amount to help ensure their continued sustainability. It's well worth it.

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

#812

Post by rglullis »

skeledrew wrote: post #811
rglullis wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as the market is loaded with LLM service providers The LLMs are not commodities. The program that interfaces with them are. > they aren't intended for public use. It was available at first, it made possible for people to use the LLM model without having to use their specific CLI tool. It's a bait-and-switch. > You have no case here. I don't need to have a legal case here to keep thinking it's a morally dsgusting pr…

They're commodities to an appreciable extent. They all do generally the same thing, with the differing factor being output quality. People can still use their model without using their CLI. Use the API that they've provided for such. They didn't break the agreement that they made; they clarified the terms of their existing agreement. There's nothing morally disgusting here. They're providing a service that they've po…

> They found a way to offer a discount for some of that cost, providing even greater value, but it has a condition which is possibly directly connected to their ability to provide that discount.

That is a lie. It's the excuse they are giving, but it has no grounds in reality. They are setting a trap, and hoping that most do what you are doing and reason your way into falling for it.

> I wish they could offer it all completely free.

No, that would be even worse. What I wish is that dropped all subsidies. Charge one price for pay-as-you go API access, charge a monthly subscription to get some "volume discount" and to secure minimum revenue per user, but DO NOT tie the discount to some orthogonal product.

My complaint is not "things are more expensive now", it's "they are making it clear that they are keeping the price artificially low in the hopes that they can find a way to exploit the user base later".

> If you like the value so much that you find it next to impossible to stay away.

Sorry, you must be mistaking me with some other bootlicker. I just cancelled it, switched to Ollama Cloud and got OpenWebUI locally.

> toward paying the full amount to help ensure their continued sustainability.

It's not sustainable. Measures like these are a clear indicator that inference alone is not profitable, not at $20/month at least.

> It's well worth it.

Giving away your agency, letting corporations push their narratives without a minimum of pushback, contributing to the acceleration of capital concentration and encouraging others to do it? For what, some marginal benefit or "the alternatives are even worse"? Fuck that! This is almost as morally reprehensible as them.

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

#813

Post by cyanydeez »

quikoa wrote: post #675
empath75 wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have it exactly backwards, and that "owning the stack" is going to be important. Yes the harness is important, yes the model is important, but developing the harness and model together is going to pay huge dividends.

If Claude Code is so much better why not make users pay to use it instead of forcing it on subscribers?

If these LLMs and tools create real valuable products, where are they?

Shouldnt there be dedicated youtubers showibg us thwir skillz?

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

#814

Post by trymas »

touristtam wrote: post #774
trymas wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use GLM lite subscription for personal use. It is advertised as 3x claude code pro (the 20$ one). 5h allowance is somewhere between 50M-100M tokens from what I can tell. On 200$ claude code plan you should be burning hundreds of millions of token per day to make anthropic hurt. IMHO subscription plans are totally banking on many users underusing them. Also LLM providers dont like to say exact numbers (how much you…

How's GLM treating you?

At the moment cannot complain.

For small personal projects it’s great value for money. Cheapest subscription was like 3$ during new years, token quota is acceptable to me (my guess it’s about 50-100M tokens per 5h)

Dunno how it would be with big projects, but with “personal project” things it feels to me that GLM-4.7 is 80-90% of Claude Opus 4.5. Just a tiny bit of more hand holding for GLM.

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

#815

Post by votepaunchy »

rglullis wrote: post #586
brookst wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any service in the world that gives you complete freedom on how you consume it? I can’t think of one. Netflix: limits number of devices and stream quality and offline use. AWS: does not allow any number of applications (spamming, crypto mining, adult content) Airlines: do not allow smoking, boom boxes Is there any service that gives complete freedom?

I am not asking for "complete" freedom, am I? Can you please argue in good faith and not resort to cheap rhetoric tricks?

“the freedom to consume the service I am paying for however I see fit” sure sounds like complete freedom.

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

#816

Post by DrammBA »

KingMob wrote: post #784
DrammBA wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are you likely to place the blame on OpenCode? am I ? Probably, but I get your point that your average user would blame Anthropic instead. > even if total token limits are the same, less caching means higher costs Not really, flat-rate pricing simply gives you a fixed token allotment, so less caching means you consume your 5-hour/weekly allotment faster.

> Not really, flat-rate pricing simply gives you a fixed token allotment, so less caching means you consume your 5-hour/weekly allotment faster. Higher costs for Anthropic, not users. With a tool that caches suboptimally, you cost Anthropic more per token.

Again, subscription gives you a fixed allotment of tokens, doesn't matter if you consume them with claude code or with a 3rd-party tool, both get the same amount of tokens and thus cost Anthropic the same.

In fact it might even be better for Anthropic if people use 3rd-party tools that cache suboptimally because the cache hits don't consume the fixed allotment so claude code users get more of a free ride and thus cost Anthropic more money.

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

#817

Post by skeledrew »

rglullis wrote: post #812
skeledrew wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're commodities to an appreciable extent. They all do generally the same thing, with the differing factor being output quality. People can still use their model without using their CLI. Use the API that they've provided for such. They didn't break the agreement that they made; they clarified the terms of their existing agreement. There's nothing morally disgusting here. They're providing a service that they've po…

> They found a way to offer a discount for some of that cost, providing even greater value, but it has a condition which is possibly directly connected to their ability to provide that discount. That is a lie. It's the excuse they are giving, but it has no grounds in reality. They are setting a trap, and hoping that most do what you are doing and reason your way into falling for it. > I wish they could offer it all c…

> That is a lie. It's the excuse they are giving

Actually I came to that thought independently, then saw others saying the same. And you can't say it's a lie because you don't know how their backend works. I assume you know of prompt caching; that's one way to huge token savings, and works best with a cooperative client. I've also noticed that whenever I send an initial prompt to their web chat, the first message that pops up is the system trying to find skills that can handle the request. Who knows what skills they have available that can handle special cases and thus also contribute to savings, which also requires a cooperative client.

> some orthogonal product.

That's just your assumption. And if they really are "keeping the price artificially low", it's still to the benefit of users who don't mind the condition of using an official client. It's absolutely up to them how they run their business, as long as they aren't actually exploiting users in a market they've cornered (which they can't with all the providers out there).

> It's not sustainable

If not then eventually they'll up the price, or drop it and only offer the per token API. Until that hypothetical there will still be those who benefited from it while it was though. Nothing can change the fact that they've been offering users great value. It's kinda wild you're trying to detract from that even now, with 0 basis. Enjoy Ollama Cloud.

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

#818

Post by rglullis »

skeledrew wrote: post #817
rglullis wrote: post #812

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They found a way to offer a discount for some of that cost, providing even greater value, but it has a condition which is possibly directly connected to their ability to provide that discount. That is a lie. It's the excuse they are giving, but it has no grounds in reality. They are setting a trap, and hoping that most do what you are doing and reason your way into falling for it. > I wish they could offer it all c…

> That is a lie. It's the excuse they are giving Actually I came to that thought independently, then saw others saying the same. And you can't say it's a lie because you don't know how their backend works. I assume you know of prompt caching ; that's one way to huge token savings, and works best with a cooperative client. I've also noticed that whenever I send an initial prompt to their web chat, the first message th…

You have to pick a lane: either their backend is a commodity (interchangeable) or it's not.

> as long as they aren't actually exploiting users in a market they've cornered (which they can't with all the providers out there).

Price dumping and tie-in sales are business practices that destroy the market. They make it impossible for smaller players to compete. You don't get to feel exploited today, but you will get exploited in the end. But by then it will be too late.

> Nothing can change the fact that they've been offering users great value.

So was Über, so was AirBNB, so was every VC-funded company that followed the enshittification playbook. You have to be incredibly naive and/or short-sighted and/or selfish to keep condoning these practices.

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

#819

Post by Bolwin »

deadbabe wrote: post #682
jspdown wrote: post #310

I pay a Max subscription since a long time, I like their model but I hate their tools: - Claude Desktop looks like a demo app. It's slow to use and so far behind the Codex app that it's embarassing. - Claude Code is buggy has hell and I think I've never used a CLI tool that consume so much memory and CPU. Let's not talk about the feature parity with other agents. - Claude Agent SDK is poorly documented, half finished…

I regret ever promoting that Claude Code crap. I remember when it was nothing but glowing reviews everywhere. Honestly AI companies should stick to what they are good at: direct API interface to powerful models. We are heading toward a $1000/month model just to use LLMs in the cloud.

They still have that. If that's all you wanted then what are you complaining about

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

#820

Post by Wobbles42 »

sarchertech wrote: post #547
Wobbles42 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And knives apparently. I recently encountered this randomly -- knives are apparently one of the few products that nearly every household has needed since antiquity, and they have changed fairly little since the bronze age, so they are used by economists as a benchmark that can span centuries. Source: it was an aside in a random economics conversation with charGPT (grain of salt?). There is no practical upshot here, b…

Yeah I’d definitely take that knife thing with a grain of salt. I have most of a history degree, took a lot of Econ classes (before later going back for CS), and it’s a topic I’m very interested in and I’ve never heard that (and some digging didn’t find anything). It’s also false that the technology has changed very little. The jumps from bronze to iron to steel to modern steel and sometimes to stainless steel all re…

Interesting. I am glad you commented. It's nice getting grounding from someone with a real background in the area.

With that said, if it is a hallucination (and it sounds like it was), it's one of the more interesting ones I have encountered. It almost has the shape of a good idea.

Blade and handle material has certainly changed over the years, but I think good arguments about how relevant that is could be made both ways. They remain handled cutting tools, used in the same general way, for the same general purposes (though as you posted out, some use cases have gone away). Basically anyone from any of these periods would recognize a knife from any other, and be able to pick it up and make immediate use of it for all their normal knife related purposes.

To be clear though, I am now siding with the clankers and arguing for a hallucination. It's an interesting thing to think about, but it sounds like it's not an established concept in any way shape or form.

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