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When I saw Jensen's talk about how Openclaw surpassed React and Linux in terms of GitHub stars within a few months, I knew the whole thing was manufactured bot

When I saw Jensen's talk about how Openclaw surpassed React and Linux in terms of GitHub stars within a few months, I knew the whole thing was manufactured bot hype. No one can tell me a compelling use case. The whole thing seems designed around getting people to burn more tokens.

rvz 6mo ago
> No one can tell me a compelling use case. The whole thing seems designed around getting people to burn more tokens. Exactly. These companies are only hyping openclaw so that we continue to spend hundreds of dollars a day worth of tokens on their infrastructure. That’s why companies like Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google and many others all want you to spend more on tokens on openclaw and they don’t care if it has no use-case. All I see is this: Almost no-one other than the hosting providers and course sellers are making money on openclaw and its clones but not those who are running openclaw itself. What a scam.
- jeffyaw 6mo ago
  didn’t Anthropic block open claw usage?
  - mynegation 6mo ago
    Yes, from using flat rate subscriptions. Everyone is welcome to run it on top of the usage-billed Anthropic API
canadiantim 6mo ago
Openclaw simply makes the effectiveness of working with claude code and similar available to a broader audience that hadn't been exposed to it before. Sure Cowork does similar, but I believe that's still why Openclaw became so popular.
- datadrivenangel 6mo ago
  Except it's so janky and unreliable that the audience hasn't fully realized that it's not the winning move.
Bridged7756 6mo ago
My thoughts exactly. If whatever i wanted it to do was so unimportant that I can trust this thing to have full control over it and to do it successfully why even do it anyways? The risks of giving it full unparalleled API key access and control fully outweigh whatever gain.
Kiro 6mo ago
It's massive in China. Search for "raise a lobster" and check out the videos from the events.
- ge96 6mo ago
  Surprising seems like they'd favor Manus
- yorwba 6mo ago
  It's massive in the sense of people hyping it on social media and grifters trying to profit from it. Pure FOMO, not dissimilar from the earlier "earning a side income using ChatGPT" hype. I doubt there are many people using it successfully for any purpose other than producing social media content promoting courses promising people to teach them how to use OpenClaw, for a fee of course.
- raincole 6mo ago
  Yes. OpenClaw is (weirdly) tangled with anime/gaming culture in China.
heliumtera 6mo ago
There is one usecase: you can laundry your actions and just say "oopsies, llms when rogue I guess" It's not pretty and not honest but if you're desperate I guess it's an option
- Avicebron 6mo ago
  I would prefer it if it could do my laundry. I can launder my actions on my own..
bdcravens 6mo ago
Every time I've sat down to consider how it could be useful, I can't think of anything that I couldn't build as a series of cron jobs and Playwright scripts. (even using Claude Code to do the heavy lifting at first, but then the tokens are spent and I don't have ongoing cost) I can only guess it's really not for "us", but rather for those who aren't afraid of technology but aren't really engineers.
- enochthered 6mo ago
  I’ve built a few recurring tasks with an OpenClaw. It’s fun to sit on the sofa and task it. That said, everything I’ve built with it I’ve realised would work better as a script.
- snypher 6mo ago
  >series of cron jobs and Playwright scripts This is approximately the Dropbox reply. >I can only guess it's really not for "us" Exactly correct.
  - ethbr1 6mo ago
    numberOfProgrammersInTheWorld : numberOfPeopleInTheWorld
  - bdcravens 6mo ago
    > >series of cron jobs and Playwright scripts > This is approximately the Dropbox reply. lol that wasn't my intent but I totally see it now. I actually don't want to be dismissive of OpenClaw; I want to believe the hype. It's just what I've heard and what I see don't add up to me. If anything, it's a calculus where I have to decide if it's worth the time of setting up a machine and the learning curve.
doctorpangloss 6mo ago
"Thing that has huge adoption is fake, they're all morons!"
- somewhatgoated 6mo ago
  Unironically yes
- otabdeveloper4 6mo ago
  That's like saying NFTs (remember those?) has "huge adoption".
sayYayToLife 6mo ago
[dead]
ra 6mo ago
Yes agree, I imagine that's why NVIDIA and OpenAI jumped at them. I wouldn't touch that vibe-coded mess with a ten foot pole.
- nailer 6mo ago
  The dev uses AI to build but it's not vibe coded.
mandeepj 6mo ago
I think it has obscure uses here and there, like this one https://www.reddit.com/r/openclaw/comments/1shutzt/openclaw_literally_made_me_93_today_and_i_did https://www.reddit.com/r/openclaw/comments/1shutzt/openclaw_...
- 8fingerlouie 6mo ago
  But did it really warrant running an openclaw machine to do that ? Claude Code, Codex or something else running on your laptop could also have done that, and with Claude Cowork / Dispatch you could leave Claude running on your laptop at home, using your phone to have it do the work. I have no doubt agentic AI exists in our future, I'm just no so sure about needing openclaw.
  - mandeepj 6mo ago
    For that Reddit post, it seems OpenClaw submitted that claim at a website, which I don’t think Claude code, codex or any other model can do. It requires a skill and tool calling combination.
borplk 6mo ago
My observation is that people who love this stuff are not programmers so they feel like they have been empowered to automate things that they could not otherwise automate. For people who are already highly skilled in scripting/automation it's a lot less impressive. They notice all the things that could go wrong. All the non-determinism issues. And they think I could do this better with a custom script myself. The use cases I have heard all seem like gimmicks to me.
- MoonMao42 6mo ago
  [dead]
ChadMoran 6mo ago
Monitors my company's support email, searches though code, GitHub etc to try and triage the issue and shoot me a message to give me a head start. Connects stripe subscription cancellation with PostHog events to see if something was frustrating. Does the same leading up to when someone subscribes to describe successful paths. Lots of novel thinking when events happen on its own being proactive. Just because people aren't talking about it doesn't mean it isn't useful. Think creatively.
nailer 6mo ago
> No one can tell me a compelling use case. I get it to run really slow unit tests and fix them, I provide it feeedbak while at lunch, walking the dog, whatever else. My developer friends also do the same.
satvikpendem 6mo ago
That's because it automatically stars itself when installed

rvz 6mo ago

> No one can tell me a compelling use case. The whole thing seems designed around getting people to burn more tokens. Exactly. These companies are only hyping openclaw so that we continue to spend hundreds of dollars a day worth of tokens on their infrastructure. That’s why companies like Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google and many others all want you to spend more on tokens on openclaw and they don’t care if it has no use-case. All I see is this: Almost no-one other than the hosting providers and course sellers are making money on openclaw and its clones but not those who are running openclaw itself. What a scam.

jeffyaw 6mo ago
didn’t Anthropic block open claw usage?
- mynegation 6mo ago
  Yes, from using flat rate subscriptions. Everyone is welcome to run it on top of the usage-billed Anthropic API

canadiantim 6mo ago

Openclaw simply makes the effectiveness of working with claude code and similar available to a broader audience that hadn't been exposed to it before. Sure Cowork does similar, but I believe that's still why Openclaw became so popular.

datadrivenangel 6mo ago
Except it's so janky and unreliable that the audience hasn't fully realized that it's not the winning move.

Bridged7756 6mo ago

My thoughts exactly. If whatever i wanted it to do was so unimportant that I can trust this thing to have full control over it and to do it successfully why even do it anyways? The risks of giving it full unparalleled API key access and control fully outweigh whatever gain.

Kiro 6mo ago

It's massive in China. Search for "raise a lobster" and check out the videos from the events.

ge96 6mo ago
Surprising seems like they'd favor Manus
yorwba 6mo ago
It's massive in the sense of people hyping it on social media and grifters trying to profit from it. Pure FOMO, not dissimilar from the earlier "earning a side income using ChatGPT" hype. I doubt there are many people using it successfully for any purpose other than producing social media content promoting courses promising people to teach them how to use OpenClaw, for a fee of course.
raincole 6mo ago
Yes. OpenClaw is (weirdly) tangled with anime/gaming culture in China.

heliumtera 6mo ago

There is one usecase: you can laundry your actions and just say "oopsies, llms when rogue I guess" It's not pretty and not honest but if you're desperate I guess it's an option

Avicebron 6mo ago
I would prefer it if it could do my laundry. I can launder my actions on my own..

bdcravens 6mo ago

Every time I've sat down to consider how it could be useful, I can't think of anything that I couldn't build as a series of cron jobs and Playwright scripts. (even using Claude Code to do the heavy lifting at first, but then the tokens are spent and I don't have ongoing cost) I can only guess it's really not for "us", but rather for those who aren't afraid of technology but aren't really engineers.

enochthered 6mo ago
I’ve built a few recurring tasks with an OpenClaw. It’s fun to sit on the sofa and task it. That said, everything I’ve built with it I’ve realised would work better as a script.
snypher 6mo ago
>series of cron jobs and Playwright scripts This is approximately the Dropbox reply. >I can only guess it's really not for "us" Exactly correct.
- ethbr1 6mo ago
  numberOfProgrammersInTheWorld : numberOfPeopleInTheWorld
- bdcravens 6mo ago
  > >series of cron jobs and Playwright scripts > This is approximately the Dropbox reply. lol that wasn't my intent but I totally see it now. I actually don't want to be dismissive of OpenClaw; I want to believe the hype. It's just what I've heard and what I see don't add up to me. If anything, it's a calculus where I have to decide if it's worth the time of setting up a machine and the learning curve.

doctorpangloss 6mo ago

"Thing that has huge adoption is fake, they're all morons!"

somewhatgoated 6mo ago
Unironically yes
otabdeveloper4 6mo ago
That's like saying NFTs (remember those?) has "huge adoption".

sayYayToLife 6mo ago

[dead]

ra 6mo ago

Yes agree, I imagine that's why NVIDIA and OpenAI jumped at them. I wouldn't touch that vibe-coded mess with a ten foot pole.

nailer 6mo ago
The dev uses AI to build but it's not vibe coded.

mandeepj 6mo ago

I think it has obscure uses here and there, like this one https://www.reddit.com/r/openclaw/comments/1shutzt/openclaw_literally_made_me_93_today_and_i_did https://www.reddit.com/r/openclaw/comments/1shutzt/openclaw_...

8fingerlouie 6mo ago
But did it really warrant running an openclaw machine to do that ? Claude Code, Codex or something else running on your laptop could also have done that, and with Claude Cowork / Dispatch you could leave Claude running on your laptop at home, using your phone to have it do the work. I have no doubt agentic AI exists in our future, I'm just no so sure about needing openclaw.
- mandeepj 6mo ago
  For that Reddit post, it seems OpenClaw submitted that claim at a website, which I don’t think Claude code, codex or any other model can do. It requires a skill and tool calling combination.

borplk 6mo ago

My observation is that people who love this stuff are not programmers so they feel like they have been empowered to automate things that they could not otherwise automate. For people who are already highly skilled in scripting/automation it's a lot less impressive. They notice all the things that could go wrong. All the non-determinism issues. And they think I could do this better with a custom script myself. The use cases I have heard all seem like gimmicks to me.

MoonMao42 6mo ago
[dead]

ChadMoran 6mo ago

Monitors my company's support email, searches though code, GitHub etc to try and triage the issue and shoot me a message to give me a head start. Connects stripe subscription cancellation with PostHog events to see if something was frustrating. Does the same leading up to when someone subscribes to describe successful paths. Lots of novel thinking when events happen on its own being proactive. Just because people aren't talking about it doesn't mean it isn't useful. Think creatively.

nailer 6mo ago

> No one can tell me a compelling use case. I get it to run really slow unit tests and fix them, I provide it feeedbak while at lunch, walking the dog, whatever else. My developer friends also do the same.

satvikpendem 6mo ago

That's because it automatically stars itself when installed