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> It's all circumstantial but everything points towards "desperately trying to cut costs". I have been wondering if it's more geared at reducing resource usage
by rlpb 6mo ago
> It's all circumstantial but everything points towards "desperately trying to cut costs".
I have been wondering if it's more geared at reducing resource usage, given that at the moment there's a known constraint on AI datacenter expansion capability. Perhaps they are struggling to meet demand?
- sshine 6mo ago> Perhaps Anthropic is struggling to meet demand? Yes, definitely, they’re gracefully failing to meet demand. They could also deny new customers, but it would probably be bad for business.
- leesalminen 6mo agoI once decided to deny new customers in order to be able to service current demand at the quality we wanted. It backfired and made people want our product even more. Our phones were blowing up. That approach can have unintended consequences!
- sunnybeetroot 6mo agoYou unintentionally used a common sales tactic; by decreasing supply you increase demand.
- ayewo 6mo agoAnother knob you could have turned is: raise prices. Did you try this?
- sshine 6mo agoAnthropic is already doing this. Signup prices seem higher now than three months ago. This is actually the least frustrating method because people who can't afford to pay are not as angry as people who paid and aren't getting served (like when sign-in emails don't arrive for hours or days), or people who have paid for a long time to suddenly see quality decrease. But it might not be best for business: Having more users than you can handle might suck, but if you're popular enough, people are still gonna put up with it.
- 59nadir 6mo agoBad for business and probably unwise for the type of product people will pop their head in to check on, then stop paying and return much later to see whether it's still not much more than a parlor trick for them.
- dwaite 6mo agoFor my part, I've tried to help reduce their demand by cancelling my subscription.
- stingraycharles 6mo agoIt’s more that Anthropic knows that the models themselves are non-sticky, and the real moat is in the ecosystem around it. It only makes sense for them to get users to use their ecosystem, rather than other tools.
- oorza 6mo agoSee: Claude Cowork trying to establish an entire new group of people in their ecosystem.
- kordlessagain 6mo agoAnd massive VM drive growth
- MuffinFlavored 6mo agoI wish they would just rip the bandaid to stop everybody's entitled whining. "We're sorry, what we were able to give you for $100/mo before now needs to be $200/mo (or more). We miscalculated/we were too generous/gave too much away for too little. It's a new technology, we are seeing a ton of demand, we are trying to run a business, hope you understand. If you don't want it, don't pay for it."
- schmookeeg 6mo agoThis is my take too, although I'm not prepared for a max400 reality to replace the max200, but... I hate all of the whingeing. Piggies at the buffet line seem to be the loudest on this subject.
- 73738488484 6mo agoIt is one thing to pay 100 a month to make calendar apps for your linkedin and birds on bicycles to get invited to talks, paying 200 HOWEVER
- sunnybeetroot 6mo agoIf we didn’t have the birds on bicycles, how would we know the models are getting better?
- oorza 6mo agoAre we at the point where there are external constraints that cash can't solve?
- jazzyjackson 6mo agocan't tell if you're being facetious but yes, there's not enough cash in the world to double energy/silicon fab capacity in a year. Infrastructure takes time, hardware is hard, and you have to be willing to bet that the demand will be there 5 years from now to make an investment today.
- 6mo ago