Anthropic Changed Their Mind (Again)

Hi Sam, starting June 15th, Max 5X plans subscribers claim a $100 monthly credit for using Claude SDK and Claude-P. These are things like Open Claude, Hermes, or T3 Code. Any tool that was using Claude subscriptions under the hood would get given a pot of cash to to to to use that sort of stuff cuz of course we all know that the Claude subscriptions but massively subsidized, massively subsidized. Uh but on the day of, we get another email which I'm looking for right now. Hi Sam, in in May we sent you email announcing that starting today Claude Agent SDK, Claude-P, and third party apps built on the Agent SDK would stop drawing from subscription subscription rate limits and move on to a dedicated monthly credit. We're writing to let you know we're not making this change today. We're working to update the plan to better support how builders build the Claude subscriptions. Nothing changes for now. Agent SDK and Claude-P for third party usage continues to work with your subscription exactly as it did before and there's no credit to claim. Your subscription limits are unchanged. When we have an update, we'll share it with you. I was like, "Yes! Yes!" And I was like going to go and update a bunch of my stuff to use Claude so I don't have to, you know, I could use Claude with my subscription that I'm paying for. And funny enough, I recorded a video on Hermes which I haven't released yet, but I recorded a video on Hermes and it was automatically linking my Claude subscription and my usage credits were going down. I was like, "What what I just did not did not understand what was going on at all." Then I checked this article here and they quote they've got a screenshot here which has slightly different wording. Claude Agent SDK, Claude-P, and third party usage still draw from your subscription's usage limits? So that's that explains everything, but it's not stated in this bloody email. It definitely doesn't state that. So it it makes all sense, but it's just really annoying and I think I sent a tweet about the fact that Anthropic are just so at their communication. Like I think they could be a lot lot better at their communication. Yeah, so it must have been taken from this. This is a page on there, so they've they're able to update this and gain a bit of clarity. This is still bad. This is still bad. Like that pop, we have to top up that pop. We have to top up that monthly usage credit. Now it's taken from that, whereas they were previously just going to give us a chunk of money that it would draw from and that was actually a good thing. Wasn't the best thing, but it wasn't a good thing either. Um now this is even worse, which is quite annoying. I think people have missed that. I don't I don't see a lot of people like angry about the fact that they're hang up. Like you you you were going to give it you you gave us something then you took it away. Then you were going to give us something and now you've taken it away again. A little bit annoyed about that. I I don't know honestly why they are doing this. They want users for example to not use um Claude's their Claude subscription with tools like Hermes and um like programmatic uses and also other types of like agents like uh those. But why don't they just ban those in a way? It is cuz they can't figure out a reliable way to know if someone's using Hermes or open Claude or whatever. They just can't because you're essentially just calling the API and they've just there's no indicators that accurately tell them. There was that one guy who got charged a bunch of money because he had a line a comment in a file that said Hermes in it. So they just had to like make a decision. It's all or nothing. And I think it just goes to show how much they're actually subsidizing cuz it basically these these tools mean that you can build something that can actually use the the tokens that you buy. Actually use the subscription that you paid for. We all like this is a matter of this is this is um a well-known fact, right? The there is a huge sub- subsidization is happening all over all over the industry. The people who pay for the higher tiers that don't use all of their token credits um subscription, whatever it is, whether it's uh Netflix, whether it's uh Amazon. Like there are people that do not use. And that's what you bank on. You bank on people not using what you give them. And you and you've got to draw you've got to find as a product owner you've got to find that balance between well what looks really good, but we know that no one will go over it or how much are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to like make it the offer sound so good it's hard to refuse, but actually people end up not using enough anyway. So it's Do you know what I mean? It's a very It's a balancing act. The It is a balancing act, but overall from what I understand there are arguments that uh Anthropic is not making much money uh if not anything on these subscriptions. They're probably losing money on these. Where they're making money is on enterprise. So they are trying to lure you in. You basically subscribe for 200 bucks. You get tons of usage. And once you like it enough, you probably will continue using that in your company and you uh you know, you ask your company to buy this and then they buy the enterprise and this is where they're making a lot of money. So, why would they limit you? Because it's a losing money system anyway that starting point and using these agents kind of like guarantees like users that use these like programmatic uses and agents will draw much more from the tokens and they won't just to make sure they have you know, you know, they are not giving away too much of free stuff. But they're managing it pretty poorly. There is no doubt in that and that they are communi- their communication just doesn't exist. It's It's that bad. The naive the naive people will say and and I understand cuz people don't understand how business works, but then I think the naive people will say that hang on, I've paid my subscription. In fact, let me find it actually. Instead of limits, there should be a fixed number of tokens for subscriptions. There should be there should be prepaid rollover tokens when you barely use any in a month. I shouldn't need to wait 5 hours every 10 minutes, right? This That That's something That's something separate. But rollover tokens when you don't use any like this You don't understand how business works. Like Not Not that I'm saying it's a good thing or a bad thing. This is just the way that it is. I don't I don't run any subscription services, so I don't benefit from this at all. But they they subsidize. They they make sure that that you pay and that you don't They want you not to use your your your maximum amount or whatever, you know, they they they benefit from you not using it. So, why they why would they just let you have a rollover? And why should there be a fixed number of tokens? It makes sense that this one would think and feel like that. I totally understand that. But, it's just not the way it works. And It It is just not the reality. The reality is these tools are expensive. Like, the amount of money that these companies are burning is insane. So, yes, we are paying 200 bucks, and it's a lot of money, but it's all relative. Like, we like it or not, that's the reality. That $200 that I'm paying is not enough for that company to make money with because they are burning crazy amount of money on everything that we are talking about. So, like, the training, the the servers, the the graphic cards, everything, the the electricity. It's just too expensive, and the reality is we've been kind of lied to, uh like a sweet lie, and we are just waking up. We're just waking up to the fact that oh, that, you know, model that we've been using to generate images with, and, you know, what what else, it's just burning money for the business, and they cannot continue this forever. There was this funny video from Big A. Uh he It was about the SpaceX whole thing, but it's it's the same thing. It's he uh he generated an image with Grok. Uh the image was Elon Musk putting lipstick on a pig. And he [laughter] just to make his point, he made it 20 times for free. And the whole point was like, "Look, I can do this. There is no world that I can generate an image, Elon putting lipstick on a pig, 20 times for free and that business will somehow make money with it. No, they're they're losing money with it and that that's that's the reality. So, we'll see how how far this can go. I hope more companies will sign up. They will pay the enterprise so we can continue enjoying our not you know, too cheap but also not as expensive as what reality is the the $200 subscription. This is part of a larger conversation on my show, Command AI, which we stream live every single week. We discuss the news and all things related to AI in the world of design and web. Catch us next week and join in the banter. Command AI.