5 ms·

I do wonder if they locked things down due to people abusing their CC token.

whywhywhywhy 9mo ago
Taking umbrage as if it matters how I use the compute I'm paying for via the harness they want me to use it within as long as I'm just doing personal tasks I want to do for myself, not trying to power an apps API with it seems such a waste of their time to be focusing on and only causes brand perception damage with their customers. Could have just turned a blind eye.
echelon 9mo ago
The loss of access shows the kind of power they'll have in the future. It's just a taste of what's to come. If a company is going to automate our jobs, we shouldn't be giving them money and data to do so. They're using us to put ourselves out of work, and they're not giving us the keys. I'm fine with non-local, open weights models. Not everything has to run on a local GPU, but it has to be something we can own. I'd like a large, non-local Qwen3-Coder that I can launch in a RunPod or similar instance. I think on-demand non-local cloud compute can serve as a middle ground.
- derac 9mo ago
  Kimi k2.5 is a good choice.
cedws 9mo ago
In what way would it be abused? The usage limits apply all the same, they aren't client side, and hitting that limit is within the terms of the agreement with Anthropic.
- bri3d 9mo ago
  The subscription services have assumptions baked in about the usage patterns; they're oversubscribed and subsidized. If 100% of subscriber customers use 100% of their tokens 100% of the time, their business model breaks. That's what wholesale / API tokens are for. > hitting that limit is within the terms of the agreement with Anthropic It's not, because the agreement says you can only use CC.
  - Nemi 9mo ago
    > The subscription services have assumptions baked in about the usage patterns; they're oversubscribed and subsidized. Selling dollars for $.50 does that. It sounds like they have a business model issue to me.
    - bri3d 9mo ago
      This is how every cloud service and every internet provider works. If you want to get really edgy you could also say it's how modern banking works. Without knowing the numbers it's hard to tell if the business model for these AI providers actually works, and I suspect it probably doesn't at the moment, but selling an oversubscribed product with baked in usage assumptions is a functional business model in a lot of spaces (for varying definitions of functional, I suppose). I'm surprised this is so surprising to people.
      - deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
      - muyuu 9mo ago
        If they rely on this to be competitive, I have serious doubts they will survive much longer. There are already many serious concerns about sharing code and information with 3rd parties, and those Chinese open models are dangerously close to destroying their entire value proposition.
      - Tossrock 9mo ago
        Don't forget gyms and other physical-space subscriptions. It's right up there with razor-and-blades for bog standard business models. Imagine if you got a gym membership and then were surprised when they cancelled your account for reselling gym access to your friends.
      - Nemi 9mo ago
        > selling an oversubscribed product with baked in usage assumptions is a functional business model in a lot of spaces Being a common business model and it being functional are two different things. I agree they are prevalent, but they are actively user hostile in nature. You are essentially saying that if people use your product at the advertised limit, then you will punish them. I get why the business does it, but it is an adversarial business model.
CamperBob2 9mo ago
How do I "abuse" a token? I pass it to their API, the request executes, a response is returned, I get billed for it. That should be the end of the conversation. (Edit due to rate-limiting: I see, thanks -- I wasn't aware there was more than one token type.)
- bri3d 9mo ago
  You can buy this product, right here: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing That's not the product you buy when you a Claude Code token, though.
  - s5fs 9mo ago
    Claude Code supports using API credits, and you can turn on Extra Usage and use API credits automatically once your session limit is reached. This confused me for a while, having two separate "products" which are sold differently, but can be used by the same tool.
simonw 9mo ago
I buy the theory that Claude Code is engineered to use things like token caching efficiently, and their Claude Max plans were designed with those optimizations in mind. If people start using the Claude Max plans with other agent harnesses that don't use the same kinds of optimizations the economics may no longer have worked out. (But I also buy that they're going for horizontal control of the stack here and banning other agent harnesses was a competitive move to support that.)
- volkercraig 9mo ago
  Absolutely. I installed clawdbot for just long enough to send a single message, and it burned through almost a quarter of my session allowance. That was enough for me. Meanwhile I can use CC comfortably for a few hours and I've only hit my token limit a few times. I've had a similar experience with opencode, but I find that works better with my local models anyway.
  - giancarlostoro 9mo ago
    Wow, that is very surprising and alarming. I wish Anthropic would have made a more public statement as to why they blocked other harnesses.
  - andai 9mo ago
    I used it for a few mins and it burned 7M tokens. Wish there was a way to see where it's going! (There probably is, but I found it very hard to make sense of the UI and how everything works. Hard to change models, no chat history etc.?)
    - giancarlostoro 9mo ago
      I have a feeling the different harnesses create new context windows instead of using one. The more context windows you open up with Claude the quicker your usage goes poof.
- ImprobableTruth 9mo ago
  If that was the real reason, why wouldn't they just make it so that if you don't correctly use caching you use up more of your limit?
segmondy 9mo ago
Nah, their "moat" is CC, they are afraid that as other folks build effective coding agent, they are are going lose market share.

Taking umbrage as if it matters how I use the compute I'm paying for via the harness they want me to use it within as long as I'm just doing personal tasks I want to do for myself, not trying to power an apps API with it seems such a waste of their time to be focusing on and only causes brand perception damage with their customers. Could have just turned a blind eye.

echelon 9mo ago

The loss of access shows the kind of power they'll have in the future. It's just a taste of what's to come. If a company is going to automate our jobs, we shouldn't be giving them money and data to do so. They're using us to put ourselves out of work, and they're not giving us the keys. I'm fine with non-local, open weights models. Not everything has to run on a local GPU, but it has to be something we can own. I'd like a large, non-local Qwen3-Coder that I can launch in a RunPod or similar instance. I think on-demand non-local cloud compute can serve as a middle ground.

derac 9mo ago
Kimi k2.5 is a good choice.

cedws 9mo ago

In what way would it be abused? The usage limits apply all the same, they aren't client side, and hitting that limit is within the terms of the agreement with Anthropic.

bri3d 9mo ago
The subscription services have assumptions baked in about the usage patterns; they're oversubscribed and subsidized. If 100% of subscriber customers use 100% of their tokens 100% of the time, their business model breaks. That's what wholesale / API tokens are for. > hitting that limit is within the terms of the agreement with Anthropic It's not, because the agreement says you can only use CC.
- Nemi 9mo ago
  > The subscription services have assumptions baked in about the usage patterns; they're oversubscribed and subsidized. Selling dollars for $.50 does that. It sounds like they have a business model issue to me.
  - bri3d 9mo ago
    This is how every cloud service and every internet provider works. If you want to get really edgy you could also say it's how modern banking works. Without knowing the numbers it's hard to tell if the business model for these AI providers actually works, and I suspect it probably doesn't at the moment, but selling an oversubscribed product with baked in usage assumptions is a functional business model in a lot of spaces (for varying definitions of functional, I suppose). I'm surprised this is so surprising to people.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - muyuu 9mo ago
      If they rely on this to be competitive, I have serious doubts they will survive much longer. There are already many serious concerns about sharing code and information with 3rd parties, and those Chinese open models are dangerously close to destroying their entire value proposition.
    - Tossrock 9mo ago
      Don't forget gyms and other physical-space subscriptions. It's right up there with razor-and-blades for bog standard business models. Imagine if you got a gym membership and then were surprised when they cancelled your account for reselling gym access to your friends.
    - Nemi 9mo ago
      > selling an oversubscribed product with baked in usage assumptions is a functional business model in a lot of spaces Being a common business model and it being functional are two different things. I agree they are prevalent, but they are actively user hostile in nature. You are essentially saying that if people use your product at the advertised limit, then you will punish them. I get why the business does it, but it is an adversarial business model.

CamperBob2 9mo ago

How do I "abuse" a token? I pass it to their API, the request executes, a response is returned, I get billed for it. That should be the end of the conversation. (Edit due to rate-limiting: I see, thanks -- I wasn't aware there was more than one token type.)

bri3d 9mo ago
You can buy this product, right here: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing That's not the product you buy when you a Claude Code token, though.
- s5fs 9mo ago
  Claude Code supports using API credits, and you can turn on Extra Usage and use API credits automatically once your session limit is reached. This confused me for a while, having two separate "products" which are sold differently, but can be used by the same tool.

simonw 9mo ago

I buy the theory that Claude Code is engineered to use things like token caching efficiently, and their Claude Max plans were designed with those optimizations in mind. If people start using the Claude Max plans with other agent harnesses that don't use the same kinds of optimizations the economics may no longer have worked out. (But I also buy that they're going for horizontal control of the stack here and banning other agent harnesses was a competitive move to support that.)

volkercraig 9mo ago
Absolutely. I installed clawdbot for just long enough to send a single message, and it burned through almost a quarter of my session allowance. That was enough for me. Meanwhile I can use CC comfortably for a few hours and I've only hit my token limit a few times. I've had a similar experience with opencode, but I find that works better with my local models anyway.
- giancarlostoro 9mo ago
  Wow, that is very surprising and alarming. I wish Anthropic would have made a more public statement as to why they blocked other harnesses.
- andai 9mo ago
  I used it for a few mins and it burned 7M tokens. Wish there was a way to see where it's going! (There probably is, but I found it very hard to make sense of the UI and how everything works. Hard to change models, no chat history etc.?)
  - giancarlostoro 9mo ago
    I have a feeling the different harnesses create new context windows instead of using one. The more context windows you open up with Claude the quicker your usage goes poof.
ImprobableTruth 9mo ago
If that was the real reason, why wouldn't they just make it so that if you don't correctly use caching you use up more of your limit?

segmondy 9mo ago

Nah, their "moat" is CC, they are afraid that as other folks build effective coding agent, they are are going lose market share.