Legal agreements, compliance certifications, and security information for Claude Code.
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By bluelightning2k 2026-02-1913:048 reply Reading these comments aren't we missing the obvious?
Claude Code is a lock in, where Anthropic takes all the value.
If the frontend and API are decoupled, they are one benchmark away from losing half their users.
Some other motivations: they want to capture the value. Even if it's unprofitable they can expect it to become vastly profitable as inference cost drops, efficiency improves, competitors die out etc. Or worst case build the dominant brand then reduce the quotas.
Then there's brand - when people talk about OpenCode they will occasionally specify "OpenCode (with Claude)" but frequently won't.
Then platform - at any point they can push any other service.
Look at the Apple comparison. Yes, the hardware and software are tuned and tested together. The analogy here is training the specific harness,caching the system prompt, switching models, etc.
But Apple also gets to charge Google $billions for being the default search engine. They get to sell apps. They get to sell cloud storage, and even somehow a TV. That's all super profitable.
At some point Claude Code will become an ecosystem with preferred cloud and database vendors, observability, code review agents, etc.
By CuriouslyC 2026-02-1913:335 reply Anthropic is going to be on the losing side with this. Models are too fungible, it's really about vibes, and Claude Code is far too fat and opinionated. Ironically, they're holding back innovation, and it's burning the loyalty the model team is earning.
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.
By athrowaway3z 2026-02-1916:231 reply https://mariozechner.at/posts/2025-11-30-pi-coding-agent/
This coding agent is minimal, and it completely changed how I used models and Claude's cli now feels like extremely slow bloat.
I'd not be surprised if you're right in that this is companies / management will prefer to "pay for a complete package" approach for a long while, but power-users should not care for the model providers.
I have like 100 lines of code to get me a tmux controls & semaphore_wait extension in the pi harness. That gave me a better orchestration scheme a month ago when I adopted it, than Claude has right now.
As far as I can tell, the more you try to train your model on your harness, the worse they get. Bitter lesson #2932.
By philipwhiuk 2026-02-1917:271 reply > I'd not be surprised if you're right in that this is companies / management will prefer to "pay for a complete package" approach for a long while
I mean I suspect for corporate usage Microsoft already has this wrapped up with Microsoft & GitHub Co-Pilots.
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft certainly desire path dependence but the very nature of LLMs and intelligence itself might make that hard unless they can develop models which truly are differentiated (and better) from the rest. The Chinese open source models catching up make me suspect that won't happen. The models will just be a commodity. There is a countdown clock for when we can get Opus 4.6+ level models and its measured in months.
The reason these LLM tools being good is they can "just do stuff." Anthropic bans third party subscription auth? I'll just have my other tool use Claude Code in tmux. If third party agents can be banned from doing stuff (some advanced always on spyware or whatever), then a large chunk of the promise of AI is dead.
Amp just announced today they are dumping IDE integration. Models seem to run better on bare-bones software like Pi, and you can add or remove stuff on the fly because the whole things open source. The software writes itself. Is Microsoft just trying to cram a whole new paradigm in to an old package? Kind of like a computer printer. It will be a big business, but it isn't the future.
At scale, the end provider ultimately has to serve the inference -- they need the hardware, data centers & the electricity to power those data centers. Someone like Microsoft can also provide a SLA and price such appropriately. I'll avoid a $200/month customer acquisition cost rant, but one user, running a bunch of sub agents, can spend a ton of money. If you don't own a business or funding source, the way state of the art LLMs are being used today is totally uneconomical (easy $200+ an hour at API prices.)
36+ months out, if they overbuild the data centers and the revenue doesn't come in like OpenAI & Anthropic are forecasting, there will be a glut of hardware. If that's the case I'd expect local model usage will scale up too and it will get more difficult for enterprise providers.
(Nothing is certain but some things have become a bit more obvious than they were 6 months ago.)
By AJ007 2026-02-1918:46 Thinking about this a little more -> "nature of LLMs and intelligence"
Bloated apps are a material disadvantage. If I'm in a competitive industry that slow down alone can mean failure. The only thing Claude Code has going for it now is the loss making $200 month subsidy. Is there any conceivable GUI overlay that Anthropic or OpenAI can add to make their software better than the current terminal apps? Sure, for certain edge cases, but then why isn't the user building those themselves? 24 months ago we could have said that's too hard, but that isn't the case in 2026.
Microsoft added all of this stuff in to Windows, and it's a 5 alarm fire. Stuff that used to be usable is a mess and really slow. Running linux with Claude Code, Codex, or Pi is clearly superior to having a Windows device with neither (if it wasn't possible to run these in Windows; just a hypothetical.)
From the business/enterprise perspective - there is no single most important thing, but having an environment that is reliable and predictable is high up there. Monday morning, an the Anthropic API endpoint is down, uh oh! In the longer term, businesses will really want to control both the model and the software that interfaces with it.
If the end game is just the same as talking to the Star Trek computer, and competitors are narrowing gaps rather than widening them (e.g. Anthropic and OpenAI releases models minutes from each other now, Chinese frontier models getting closer in capability not further), then it is really hard to see how either company achieves a vertical lock down.
We could actually move down the stack, and then the real problem for OpenAI and Anthropic is nVidia. 2030, the data center expansion is bust, nVidia starts selling all of these cards to consumers directly and has a huge financial incentive to make sure the performant local models exist. Everyone in the semiconductor supply chain below nvidia only cares about keeping sales going, so it stops with them.
Maybe nvidia is the real winner?
Also is it just me or does it now feel like hn comments are just talking to a future LLM?
By CuriouslyC 2026-02-1916:05 That was true more mid last year, but now we have a fairly standard flow and set of core tools, as well as better general tool calling support. The reality is that in most cases harnesses with fewer tools and smaller system prompts outperform.
The advances in the Claude Code harness have been more around workflow automation rather than capability improvements, and truthfully workflows are very user-dependent, so an opinionated harness is only ever going to be "right" for a narrow segment of users, and it's going to annoy a lot of others. This is happening now, but the sub subsidy washes out a lot of the discontent.
If Claude Code is so much better why not make users pay to use it instead of forcing it on subscribers?
By cyanydeez 2026-02-2116:15 If these LLMs and tools create real valuable products, where are they?
Shouldnt there be dedicated youtubers showibg us thwir skillz?
By popcorncowboy 2026-02-1916:11 You're right, because owning the stack means better options for making tons of money. Owning the stack is demonstrably not required for good agents, there are several excellent (frankly way better than ol' Claude Code) harnesses in the wild (which is in part why so many people are so annoyed by Anthropic about this move - being forced back onto their shitty cli tool).
By keeganpoppen 2026-02-1918:16 the fat and opinionated has always been true for them (especially compared to openai), and to all appearances remains a feature rather than a bug. i can’t say the approach makes my heart sing, personally, but it absolutely has augured tremendous success among thought workers / the intelligensia
I thought Anthropic would fall after OpenAI, but they just might be racing to the bottom faster here.
By ruszki 2026-02-2018:50 I think there is a huge gap between people who has a good CLAUDE.md (or similar), or those who doesn’t.
When I first tried, the created code was garbage. Now that I slowly built my memory, several thousands of manually written examples and guidance, it can generate quite reliably, when it doesn’t need literally anything outside of those…
That being said, most of the vibe coded codebases (in reality every single one which I saw) use garbage memory, and consequently have garbage output.
So the same thing is terrible and great at the same time. People who give time, and people who is fine producing garbage (huge majority) says it’s great. People who just tried it out, and don’t have the luxury to potentially waste days and weeks, say that it’s bad. All of these are true at once.
By burnte 2026-02-1918:10 Maybe for coding but the number of normie users flooding to Claude over OAI is huge.
By mikestorrent 2026-02-1923:561 reply I think their branding is cementing in place for a lot of people, and the lived experience of people trying a lot of models often ends up with a simple preference for Claude, likely using a lot of the same mental heuristics as how we choose which coworkers we enjoy working with. If they can keep that position, they will have it made.
I'm a very experienced developer with a lot of diverse knowledge and experience in both technical and domain knowledge. I've only tried a handful of AI coding agents/models... I found most of them ranging from somewhat annoying to really annoying. Claude+Opus (4.5 when I started) is the first one I've used where I found it more useful than annoying to use.
I think Github Co-Pilot is most annoying from what I've tried... it's great for finishing off a task that's half done where the structure is laid out, as long as you put blinders keeping it focused on it. OpenAI and Google's options seem to get things mostly right, but do some really goofy wrong things from my own experiences.
They all seem to have trouble using state of the art and current libraries by default, even when you explicitly request them.
By mikestorrent 2026-02-200:21 Well, let's be thankful that there's still some work to do so we can keep our jobs for a few more years!
By ThunderSizzle 2026-02-2011:291 reply Github Copilot let's you pick the underlying model, including Claude models.
Is the problem you observed true regardless of the model you picked?
By tracker1 2026-02-2015:38 I've only used the default selection, whatever it is in VS Code. Even paid for a year at one point as I was first using it with some SQL schema generation and it was pretty useful, kind of as a super auto-complete.
If the default option isn't at least arguably the best option I can't really speak to that. I would suggest that maybe metrics on a given set of technologies be done and that based on the project in use, that it should choose the best option dynamically by default. Such as C#+MS-SQL vs Node+Postgres vs Python+Matlab+DuckDB.
By eshaham78 2026-02-1914:05 The competition angle is interesting - we're already seeing models like Step-3.5-Flash advertise compatibility with Claude Code's harness as a feature. If Anthropic's restrictions push developers toward more open alternatives, they might inadvertently accelerate competitor adoption. The real question is whether the subscription model economics can sustain the development costs long-term while competitors offer more flexible terms.
By rurp 2026-02-1915:28 I don't think many are confused about why Anthropic wants to do this. The crux is that they appear to be making these changes solely for their own benefit at the expense of their users and people are upset.
There are parallels to the silly Metaverse hype wave from a few years ago. At the time I saw a surprising number of people defending the investment saying it was important for Facebook to control their own platform. Well sure it's beneficial for Facebook to control a platform, but that benefit is purely for the company and if anything it would harm current and future users. Unsurprisingly, the pitch to please think of this giant corporation's needs wasn't a compelling pitch in the end.
"Training the specific harness" is marginal -- it's obvious if you've used anything else. pi with Claude is as good as (even better! given the obvious care to context management in pi) as Claude Code with Claude.
This whole game is a bizarre battle.
In the future, many companies will have slightly different secret RL sauces. I'd want to use Gemini for documentation, Claude for design, Codex for planning, yada yada ... there will be no generalist take-all model, I just don't believe RL scaling works like that.
I'm not convinced that a single company can own the best performing model in all categories, I'm not even sure the economics make it feasible.
Good for us, of course.
> pi with Claude is as good as (even better! given the obvious care to context management in pi) as Claude Code with Claude
And that’s out of the box. With how comically extensible pi is and how much control it gives you over every aspect of the pipeline, as soon as you start building extensions for your own, personal workflow, Claude Code legimitely feels like a trash app in comparison.
I don’t care what Anthropic does - I’ll keep using pi. If they think they need to ban me for that, then, oh well. I’ll just continue to keep using pi. Just no longer with Claude models.
As a Claude Code user looking for alternatives, I am very intrigued by this statement.
Can you please share good resources I can learn from to extend pi?
By theshrike79 2026-02-2021:02 Pi has specific instructions to extend itself.
You can just tell it to create an extension to connect to any AI API provider and it'll most likely one or two-shot it for you.
IMO it's the most self-aware of all of the current harnesses.
By m11a 2026-02-204:00 Don't think that's a valid comparison.
Apple can do those things because they control the hardware device, which has physical distribution, and they lock down the ecosystem. There is no third party app store, and you can't get the Photos app to save to Google Drive.
With Claude Code, just export an env variable or use a MITM proxy + some middleware to forward requests to OpenAI instead. It's impossible to have lock in. Also, coding agent CLIs are a commodity.
By chasd00 2026-02-1919:36 > At some point Claude Code will become an ecosystem with preferred cloud and database vendors, observability, code review agents, etc.
i've been wondering how anthropic is going to survive long term. If they could build out an infrastructure and services to complete with the hyperscalers but surfaced as a tool for claude to use then maybe. You pay Anthropic $20/user/month for ClaudeCode but also $100k/month to run your applications.
By ksec 2026-02-1917:33 >Claude Code is a lock in, where Anthropic takes all the value.
I wouldn't all the value, but how else are you going to run the business? Allow other to take all the value you provide?
By thenaturalist 2026-02-1913:142 reply ???
Use an API Key and there's no problem.
They literally put that in plain words in the ToS.
By 9cb14c1ec0 2026-02-1913:182 reply Using an API key is orders of magnitude more expensive. That's the difference here. The Claude Code subscriptions are being heavily subsidized by Anthropic, which is why people want to use their subscriptions in everything else.
They are subsidized by people who underuse their subscriptions. There must be a lot of them.
I think the people who use more than they pay for vastly outnumber those who pay for more than they use. It takes intention to sign up (not the default, like health care) and once you do, you quickly get in the habit of using it.
By naveen99 2026-02-1915:02 Of course, like gym memberships. VC’s subsidizing powerlifters…
This move feels poorly timed. Their latest ad campaigns about not having ads, and the goodwill they'd earned lately in my book was just decimated by this. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's still just dipping their toes into the AI pool. And am very much a user that under utilizes what I pay for because of that. I have several clients who are scrambling to get on board with cowork. Eliminating API usage for subscription members right before a potentially large wave of turnover not only chills that motivation it signals a lack of faith in their marketing, which from my POV, put out the only AI super bowl campaign to escape virtually unscathed.
> the goodwill they'd earned lately in my book was just decimated by this
That sounds absurd to me. Committing to not building in advertising is very important and fundamental to me. Asking people who pay for a personal subscription rather than paying by the API call to use that subscription themselves sounds to me like it is. Just clarifying the social compact that was already implied.
I WANT to be able to pay a subscription price. Rather like the way I pay for my internet connectivity with a fixed monthly bill. If I had to pay per packet transmitted, I would have to stop and think about it every time I decided to download a large file or watch a movie. Sure, someone with extremely heavy usage might not be able to use a normal consumer internet subscription; but it works fine for my personal use. I like having the option for my AI usage to operate the same way.
By skeledrew 2026-02-1917:35 The problem with fixed subscriptions in this model is that the service has an actual consumption cost. For something like internet service, the cost is primarily maintenance, unless the infrastructure is being expanded. But using LLMs is more like using water, where the more you use it, the greater the depletion of a resource (electricity in this case, which is likely being produced with fossil fuel which has to be sourced and transported, etc). Anthropic et al would be setting themselves up for a fall if they allow wholesale use at a fixed price.
By noosphr 2026-02-1913:24 There is a lot more vc cash.
By tom_m 2026-02-1914:42 There are. It's like healthcare, the healthy don't use it as much and pay for the sick.
By thenaturalist 2026-02-1916:03 Be the economics as they may, there is no lock in as OP claims.
This statement is plainly wrong.
If you boost and praise AI usage, you have to face the real cost.
Can't have your cake and eat it, too.
By anonym29 2026-02-1915:43 The people mad about this feel they are entitled to the heavily subsidized usage in any context they want, not in the context explicitly allowed by the subsidizer.
It's kind of like a new restaurant started handing out coupons for "90% off", wanting to attract diners to the restaurant, customers started coming in and ordering bulk meals then immediately packaging them in tupperware containers and taking it home (violating the spirit of the arrangement, even if not the letter of the arrangement), so the restaurant changed the terms on the discount to say "limited to in-store consumption only, not eligible for take-home meals", and instead of still being grateful that they're getting food for 90% off, the cheapskate customers are getting angry that they're no longer allowed to exploit the massive subsidy however they want.
By marscopter 2026-02-1917:53 > Reading these comments aren't we missing the obvious?
AI companies: "You think you own that code?"
It might be some confirmation bias here on my part but it feels as if companies are becoming more and more hostile to their API users. Recently Spotify basically nuked their API with zero urgency to fix it, redit has a whole convoluted npm package your obliged to use to create a bot, Facebook requires you to provide registered company and tax details even for development with some permissions. Am I just old man screaming at cloud about APIs used to being actually useful and intuitive?
They put no limits on the API usage, as long as you pay.
Here, they put limits on the "under-cover" use of the subscription. If they can provide a relatively cheap subscription against the direct API use, this is because they can control the stuff end-to-end, the application running on your system (Claude Code, Claude Desktop) and their systems.
As you subscribe to these plans, this is the "contract", you can use only through their tools. If you want full freedom, use the API, with a per token pricing.
For me, this is fair.
> If they can provide a relatively cheap subscription against the direct API use
Except they can't. Their costs are not magically lower when you use claude code vs when you use a third-party client.
> For me, this is fair.
This is, plain and simple, a tie-in sale of claude code. I am particularly amused by people accepting it as "fair" because in Brazil this is an illegal practice.
> This is, plain and simple, a tie-in sale of claude code. I am particularly amused by people accepting it as "fair" because in Brazil this is an illegal practice
I am very curious what is particularly illegal about this. On the sales page nowhere do they actually talk about the API https://claude.com/pricing
Now we all know obviously the API is being used because that is how things work, but you are not actually paying a subscription for the API. You are paying for access to Claude Code.
Is it also illegal that if you pay for Playstation Plus that you can't play those games on an Xbox?
Is it illegal that you can't use third party netflix apps?
I really don't want to defend and AI company here but this is perfectly normal. In no other situation would we expect access to the API, the only reason this is considered different is because they also have a different service that gives access to the API. But that is irrelevant.
It's basically the difference between pro-market capitalism and pro-business capitalism. The value to the society comes from competition in the market and from the businesses' ability to choose freely how they do business. When those two goals are in conflict, which one should be prioritized?
Anthropic provides an API third-party clients can use. The pro-market position is that the API must be available at every pricing tier, as the benefits from increased competition outweigh the imposed restrictions to business practices. The pro-business position is that Anthropic must be allowed to choose which tiers can use the API, as the benefits from increased freedom outweigh the reduced competition in the market.
So if Claude code didn’t communicate with Anthropic’s server using a well defined public api but some obscure undocumented binary format it would be fine?
Or should every app/service be required to expose documented APIs?
This is not a technical question.
The immediate pro-market position is that if third-party clients are allowed / possible, Anthropic should be allowed to favor its own clients with lower prices.
But the position can go further if the service in question can be considered infrastructure. For example, a company that owns a mobile network may be required to let virtual operators use their infrastructure for a reasonable price. And a company owning a power grid may be required to become a neutral infrastructure provider that is not allowed to generate/sell power.
By nerdjon 2026-02-1919:04 Like I mentioned somewhere else I can see why some people think they are entitled to do this and I also fully understand wanting to do it from a cost standpoint.
While I do personally disagree with thinking that you should be able to do this when it was never sold in that way, at the end of the day as a customer you can choose if you want to use the product in the way that they are saying or use something else if you don’t want to support that model.
However the person I was responding too brought up legality which is a very different discussion.
By CuriouslyC 2026-02-1913:356 reply Imagine if video service came with a free TV that watched you, and was really opinionated about what you watch, and you could only watch your videos on the creeper TV.
Then I would not use it because it does not work the way I want it to work...
But if that is the service they are making and they are clear about what it is when you sign up... That does not make it illegal.
I can see why people think they should be entitled to do this, but it does not align with how they are selling the service or how many other companies sell services. In most situations you don't get unlimited access to the individual components of how a service works (the API), you are expected to use the service (in this case Claude Code) directly.
> That does not make it illegal.
"Both parties are okay with the terms" is far from being sufficient to make something "legal".
Tie-in sales between software and services is not different from price dumping. If any of the Big Tech corporations were from any country that is not the US, the FTC would be doing anything in their power to stop them.
> Tie-in sales between software and services is not different from price dumping.
I disagree, in many cases what you are specifically paying for is the combination of the software and the service that are designed to work together. And in many cases do not work independent of eachother.
There are countless cases of this, that what you are paying for is a thing that is made up of a piece of software and a serverside component. MMO's (and gaming in general) being a major example of this, but so are many of the apps I pay for subscriptions for on my phone.
The actual technical implementation of how it works is irrelevant when it is clear what it is you are paying for.
> "Both parties are okay with the terms" is far from being sufficient to make something "legal".
True but the opposite is also true, just because you don't like the terms it does not make it illegal.
> in many cases what you are specifically paying for is the combination of the software and the service that are designed to work together
And in many cases like Claude Code and the Anthropic models, they can and do work perfectly independently.
> True but the opposite is also true, just because you don't like the terms it does not make it illegal.
This is not me "not liking it". Like I said somewhere else in this thread: these types of tie-in are illegal in Brazil. This practice is clearly not done to favor the consumer. You can bet that if the US was anything closer to a functional democracy and the laws were not written by lobbyists, this would be illegal in the US as well.
What law is actually being broken in Brazil?
Are MMO’s illegal in Brazil? Is PlayStation Plus illegal in Brazil? Is Spotify, Apple Music, etc etc etc also illegal in Brazil?
It would be ridiculous to argue that I could pay for a subscription to World of Warcraft and make my own third party client to play the game with. (Obviously you are free to argue it all you want but I would be very surprised if this was actually illegal).
> And in many cases like Claude Code and the Anthropic models, they can and do work perfectly independently.
Unless I am mistaken Claude Code does not have a local model built into it, so it requires a server side component to work?
As far as the Anthropic models, yes like many other services they ALSO have a public API that is separate from the subscription that you are paying for.
The critical difference here being that in the subscription it is very clear that you are paying for “Claude Code” which is a combination of an application and a server side component. It makes no claims about API usage as part of your subscription, again the technical implementation of the service you are actually paying for “Claude Code” is irrelevant.
When it comes to “Claude Code” for all that we should care about, again given that “Claude Code” is what you are paying for, they could be sending the information to Gemini or or a human looks at it. Because it’s irrelevant to the end user when it comes to the technical implementation since you are not being granted access to any other parts of the system directly.
> What law is actually being broken in Brazil?
"Tie-in sale": the business practice where a seller conditions the sale of one product (the tying good) on the buyer’s agreement to purchase a different product (the tied good).
The examples you are giving are not "tie-in" sales because the service from Playstation Plus, Spotify, Apple Music, etc is the distribution of digital goods.
> Unless I am mistaken Claude Code does not have a local model built into it, so it requires a server side component to work?
Which part are you not understanding?
I don't care about Claude Code. I do not want it and do not need it. All I care about is the access to the models through the client that I was already using!
> When it comes to “Claude Code” for all that we should care about, again given that “Claude Code” is what you are paying for.
No, it is not! I paid for Claude Pro. Claude != Claude Code.
By nerdjon 2026-02-1919:22 > "Tie-in sale": the business practice where a seller conditions the sale of one product (the tying good) on the buyer’s agreement to purchase a different product (the tied good)
I will keep my response to this part in particular limited because I have limited understanding of this law. However based on doing a little bit of searching around the law is not as cut and dry as you are presenting it to be. It is possible that Claude code would fall under being fine under that law or no one has gone after them. I honestly don’t know and I don’t feel like having an argument that it is highly likely both of us don’t fully understand the law.
That being said I do question how exactly “Claude code” differs from those services as a digital good.
> I don't care about Claude Code. I do not want it and do not need it. All I care about is the access to the models through the client that I was already using!
OK! That is not what you’re paying for as part of Claude Pro, end of story. You are not paying for the API. It is no different that the people that have a free plan and can only chat through the web and the app also don’t get access to the API even though it is obviously using an API to access those endpoints as well.
Or are you also going to argue that free users should have access to the API because they are already using them in the browser.
> No, it is not! I paid for Claude Pro. Claude != Claude Code.
Claude Code is one of the features you are paying for as part of Claude Pro so yes in a way you are paying for it. And again not on that list is the API.
Claude Pro = claude.ai, and they made no changes to that arrangement. Both claude.ai and Claude Pro are products built on top of the Claude API. You are free to buy access to the Claude API itself, with or without the other two, but the pricing is different because the price of claude.ai and Claude Code includes the API charges they incur.
> but the pricing is different because the price of claude.ai and Claude Code includes the API charges they incur.
If that was true, then getting equivalent usage of the API without claude.ai and Claude Code should cost less, not more.
You can try to find all sorts of explanations for it, at the end of the day is quite simple: they are subsidizing one product in order to grow the market share, and they are doing it at a loss now, because they believe they will make up for it later. I understand the reasoning from a business point of view, but this doesn't mean they are entitled to their profits. I do not understand people that think we simply accept their premise and assume they can screw us over just because they asked and put it on a piece of paper.
We don't know if, on average, paying API prices for Claude Code is cheaper or not, so we don't know if they're operating it at a "loss". That math doesn't make sense in any case since it would be a "loss" based on their own external prices. The entire company is operating at a loss, regardless.
In any case, the point is it's not tying; you're free to choose any combination of products.
By rglullis 2026-02-219:32 > n any case, the point is it's not tying; you're free to choose any combination of products.
These products can function independently, and the acquisition at a heavy discouont for one of them is conditional on the acquisition of the other. It definitely is a tie-in sale.
> All I care about is the access to the models through the client that I was already using!
But that's not a product that they're offering. That ability was an undesired (from their business perspective) trait that they're now rectifying.
> But that's not a product that they're offering
Of course it was.
It's not what they wanted, but it's not my problem. The fact that I was a customer does not mean that I need to protective of their profits.- It was possible to do it. - OpenCode did not break any security protocol in order to integrate with them. - OAuth is *precisely* a system to let third-party applications use their resources.> (from their business perspective)
So what?!
Basically, they set up an strategy they thought it was going to work in their favor (offer a subsidized service to try to lock in customers), someone else found a way to turn things around and you believe that we should be okay with this?!
Honestly, I do not understand why so many people here think it is fine to let these huge corporations run the same exploitation playbook over and over again. Basically they set up a mouse trap full of cheese and now that the mice found a way to enjoy the cheese without getting their necks broken, they are crying about it?
> Of course it was.
You'd have to point me to an authoritative source on that (explicitly saying users are allowed to use their models via private APIs in apps of the user's choosing). If something isn't explicitly provided in the contract, then it can be changed at any point in any way without notice.
Honestly, I'm not big on capitalism in general, but I don't understand why people should expect companies to provide things exactly the way they want at exactly the prices they would like to be charged (if at all). That's just not how the world/system works, or should, especially given there are so many alternatives available. If one doesn't like what's happening with some service, then let the wallet do the talking and move to another. Emigration is a far more effective message than complaining.
> I don't understand why people should expect companies to provide things exactly the way they want at exactly the prices they would like to be charged
This is a gross misrepresentation of my argument.
I wouldn't be complaining at all if they went up and said "sorry, we are not going to subsidize anyone anymore, so the prices are going up", and I wouldn't be complaining if they came up and said "sorry, using a third party client incurs an extra cost of on our side, so if you want to use that you'd have to pay extra".
What I am against is the anti-competitive practice of price discrimination and the tie-in sale of a service. If they are going to play this game, then they better be ready for the case the strategy backfires. Otherwise it's just a game of "heads I win, tails you lose" where they always get to make up the rules.
> Emigration is a far more effective message than complaining.
Why not both? I cancelled my Pro subscription today. I will stick with just Ollama cloud.
It's not tie-in. They give users 2 choices: a) use their service via their public API, with the client(s) of their choice, at the regular price point; b) use the apps they provide, which use a private API, at a discounted price point. The apps are technically negative value for them from a purely upfront cost perspective as their use trigger these discounts and they're free by themselves.
Good on you re that cancel. May you find greener grass elsewhere.
> They give users 2 choices: a) use their service via their public API, with the client(s) of their choice, at the regular price point; b) use the apps they provide, which use a private API, at a discounted price point.
There was a third choice, which was better than both of the ones presented: use any other client that can talk with our API, at whatever usage rate they deemed acceptable. If the "private API" was accessible via OAuth, then it's hardly "private".
We can argue all day, when I signed up there was nothing saying that access was exclusive via the tools they provided. They changed the rules not because it was costing them more (or even if does, they are losing money on Pro customers anyway so arguing about that is silly) but because they opened themselves for some valid and fair competition.
There was no third choice if they didn't explicitly state that there was.
> If the "private API" was accessible via OAuth, then it's hardly "private".
If you invite people on your porch for a party, and someone finds that you left the house key under the mat and went off to restock, then it's hardly "private". It's perfectly fine for whomever feels like to take the party indoors without your permission. Pretty much what you're saying, reframed, but I seriously doubt you'd agree to random people entering parts of yours premises to which you didn't explicitly invite them.
Try not making it sound like the company is doing me a favor by letting me access the thing I was paying for. I wasn't "invited to a party", I was sold on an agreement that by paying a guaranteed monthly fee I could have access to the model at a rate that was lower than the pay-as-you-go rate from the API.
The primary offering is access to the models. That's what the subscription is about. They can try as hard as they want to market it as Claude being the product and access to the model being an ancillary service, but to me this is just marketing bs. No one is signing-up for Claude because their website is nicer, or because of Claude Code.
> I was sold on an agreement that by paying a guaranteed monthly fee I could have access to the model at a rate that was lower than the pay-as-you-go rate from the API
Yes, that agreement is there, with the condition that their app is used. That's option B. And I'd think it fairly obvious that if one has to go to extraordinary lengths to gain access, like finding a key under a mat, or needing to login with an official client to gain access to a token for an unofficial client, then - implicitly - it's highly unlikely that that method of access is part of the agreement. And Anthropic has now made it explicitly clear that no, that access method is not part of the agreement.
> that agreement is there, with the condition that their app is used.
And setting this condition is what constitutes a tie-in sale.
> if one has to go to extraordinary lengths to gain access
BS! Sorry, there is nothing extraordinary about using an undocumented API.
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 that offers the access you desire. You have no case here.
[0] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/tie-in
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
> 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 practice. What I don't understand is: why do you keep defending it? Is there something in it for you, or are you just trying to rationalize your way into acceptance of their terms?
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
By skeledrew 2026-02-243:37 Their models are accessed via their backend; the models are not the backend. Their backend is unique from a features perspective, while their models are unique by virtue of training data+technique.
> They make it impossible for smaller players to compete.
No they don't. Ollama is healthy, OpenRouter, and quite a few others. Then there are actual model makers such as DeepSeek, Google, Mistral, Zai, etc. The lists march on and nobody wanting access to LLMs is left in the cold. Somehow you're still trying to stick terms which just don't apply to the status quo. Unless you believe that Anthropic's offerings are so unique and critical to people's well-being that they should be treated as a public utility or something, which is laughable.
> So was Über, so was AirBNB
There is the option of not using them. But they actually have cornered a part of the market as well, even if that part is primarily comprised of well-to-do's ready to throw money to avoid the slightest inconvenience.
By TruePath 2026-02-1920:49 Could you clarify exactly what you think is an illegal tie-in? Because it seems like what you are upset about is literally the opposite -- Anthropic unbundling their offerings so you aren't required to buy the ability to offer third party access when you purchase the ability to use Claude code and their other models. Unless I really misunderstand you, your complaint is literally thaf
The laws prohibiting tie-ins don't make it illegal to sell two products that work well together. That's literally what the laws are designed to make you do -- seperate products into seperate pieces. The problem tie-in laws were designed to combat was situations like Microsoft making a popular OS then making a mediocre spreadsheet program and pushing the cost of that spreadsheet program into the cost of buying the OS. That way consumers would go "well it's expensive but I get excel with it so it's ok" and even if someone else made a slightly better spreadsheet they didn't have the chance to convince users because they had to buy it all as one package.
Anthropic would be doing something much closer to that if they did what you wanted. They'd be saying: hey we have this neat Claude code thing you all want to use but you can't buy that without also purchasing third party access. Now some company offering a cheaper/better third party usage product doesn't get the chance to convince you because anthropic forced you to buy that just to get claude code.
Ultimately this change unbundled products the opposite of a tie-in. What is upsetting about it is that it no longer feels to you like you are getting a good deal because you now have to fork over a bunch more cash to keep getting what you want. But that's not illegal, that's just not offering good value for money.
By skeledrew 2026-02-1917:48 > Tie-in sales between software and services
Look at it this way: the service that you're accessing is really a (primarily desired) side-effect of the software. So re subscriptions, what they're actually providing are the apps (web, desktop, etc), and the apps use their service to aid the fulfillment of their functionality. Those wanting direct access to the internal service can get an API key for that purpose. That's just how their product offering is structured.
The Telly comes with a second screen for ads that you're not allowed to shut off. https://www.telly.com/
By Forgeties79 2026-02-1917:34 That’s definitely a pitch lol
By pocksuppet 2026-02-1915:32 Video service does work like that. They call it DRM.
By wasfgwp 2026-02-208:01 I can’t was Netflix on Amazon’s streaming app or the other way around? So yeah, its the same
Anthropic isn’t handing out free PCs or forcing people to use them.
By smileysteve 2026-02-1915:31 I think you just described American cable boxes... Except they charge us a monthly fee and an additional monthly fee for the box.
Or any smart tv with free ip tv.
By Reddit_MLP2 2026-02-1916:12 Is that not most if not all smart TVs today? Basically nearly every TV made and sold right now?
By theturtletalks 2026-02-1912:032 reply I've heard they actually cache the full Claude Code system prompt on their servers and this saves them a lot of money. Maybe they cache the MCP tools you use and other things. If another harness like Opencode changes that prompt or adds significantly to it, that could increase costs for them.
What I don't understand is why start this game of cat and mouse? Just look at Youtube and YT-DLP. YT-DLP, and the dozens of apps that use it, basically use Youtube's unofficial web API and it still works even after Youtube constantly patches their end. Though now, YT-DLP has to use a makeshift JS interpreter and maybe even spawn Chromium down the line.
Some people drop out of the game as it gets harder. I've basically stopped looking at youtube videos unless I want it enough to download it (and wait if the current workarounds broke) with how much they've clamped down on no-account usage. Most I suspect just give in to the company's terms.
By refsys 2026-02-1916:19 [dead]
> Their costs are not magically lower when you use claude code vs when you use a third-party client.
If subsidizing that offering is a good hook to get higher paying API users on board, then some of that cost is a customer aquisition cost, whereas the cost to them of providing the API doesn't have the same proportion that they can justify as a customer acquisition cost.
I absolutely have zero concerns about their cost to acquire new customers. As a (former) customer, all I am concerned is the freedom to consume the service I am paying for however I see fit.
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?
By votepaunchy 2026-02-2213:39 “the freedom to consume the service I am paying for however I see fit” sure sounds like complete freedom.
By rogerthis 2026-02-1917:18 Unless it's illegal in more places, I think they won't care. In my experience, the percentage of free riders in Brazil is higher (due to circumstances, better said).
By pigpop 2026-02-1911:58 While the cost may not be lower the price certainly can be if they are operating like any normal company and adding margin.
By canibal 2026-02-1915:38 But they could charge the third-party client for access to the API.
By regularfry 2026-02-1912:072 reply > Except they can't. Their costs are not magically lower when you use claude code vs when you use a third-party client.
I don't have a dog in this fight but is this actually true? If you're using Claude Code they can know that whatever client-side model selection they put into it is active. So if they can get away with routing 80% of the requests to Haiku and only route to Opus for the requests that really need it, that does give them a cost model where they can rely on lower costs than if a third-party client just routes to Opus for everything. Even if they aren't doing that sort of thing now, it would be understandable if they wanted to.
It (CC) does have a /models command, you can still decide to route everything to Opus if you just want to burn tokens I guess it's not default so most wouldn't, but still, people willing to go to a third party client are more likely that kind of power user anyway
They still have the total consumption under their control (*bar prompt caching and other specific optimizations) where in the past they even had different quotas per model, it shouldn't cost them more money, just be a worse/different service I guess
> it shouldn't cost them more money
As things are currently, better models mean bigger models that take more storage+RAM+CPU, or just spend more time processing a request. All this translates to higher costs, and may be mitigated by particular configs triggered by knowledge that a given client, providing particular guarantees, is on the other side.
That’s kind of the point. Even if users can choose which model to use (and apparently the default is the largest one), they could still say (For roughly the same cost): your Opus quota is X, your Haiku quota is Y, go ham. We’ll throttle you when you hit the limit.
By skeledrew 2026-02-1918:48 But they don't want the subscription to be quota'd like that. The API automatically does that though, as different models use different amounts of tokens when generating responses, and the billing is per token. And quite literally is having the user account for the actual costs of usage, which is the thing said users are trying to avoid, on their own terms, and getting upset about when they aren't.
By ac29 2026-02-1914:28 > It (CC) does have a /models command, you can still decide to route everything to Opus if you just want to burn tokens I guess it's not default so most wouldn't
Opus is claude code's default model as of sometime recently (around Opus 4.6?)
That’s not how Claude Code works. It’s not like a web chatbot with a layer that routes based on complexity of request.
By skeledrew 2026-02-1918:06 You don't control what happens when a request hits their endpoint though.
I think what most people don't realize is running an agent 24/7 fully automated is burning a huge hole in their profitability. Who even knows how big it is. It could be getting it on the 8/9 figures a day for all we know.
There's this pervasive idea left over from the pre-llm days that compute is free. You want to rent your own H200x8 to run your Claude model, that's literally going to cost $24/hour. People are just not thinking like that. I have my home PC, it does this stuff I can run it 24/7 for free.
By starkgoose 2026-02-1911:451 reply there are usage limits preventing you from running it 24/7 on all subscriptions tiers
By butlike 2026-02-1915:44 This bolster's OP's point, to an extent
I understand you mean for free in the sense that you don't pay a third party to use it, however let's no forget that you still use the power grid and that's not free. Also worth to note that energy prices have increased worldwide.
By dspillett 2026-02-1911:48 Depending on utilisation and good use of low-power or sleep (or full off) states when things aren't actively processing, it can still be a _lot_ cheaper to run things at home than on a rented service. Power costs have increased a lot in recent years, but so have compute-per-watt ratios and you are not paying the that indirect compute price when the processors are asleep or off whereas with subscription access to LLMs you are paying at least the base subscription each month even if you don't use it at all in that period. Much the same as the choice between self-hosting an open-source project or paying for a hosted instance - and in both cases people don't tend to consider the admin cost (for some of us the admin is “play time”!) so the self-hosted option it does practically feel free.
By regenschutz 2026-02-1912:581 reply Maintaining hardware also isn't free. Time is money.
By darkwater 2026-02-1913:56 Time is money if you have another good use of that time. If you like spending that time doing something, then it's literally free.
By mickeyp 2026-02-1911:21 Sure it's $24/hour, but it'll crank through tens of thousands of tokens per second --- those beefy GPUs are meant for large amounts of parallel workflow. You'll never _get_ that many tokens for a single request. That's why the mathematics work when you get dozens or hundreds of people using it.
No. The sauce is in KV caching: when to evict, when to keep, how to pre-empt an active agent loop vs someone who are showing signs of inactivity at their pc, etc.
By admx8 2026-02-1912:15 Coder doing the coding should use subscription, and now they ban the choice of your preferred ide for agentc coding. API is for automation not coding. I'm going to cancel their subscription today, I already use codex with opencode.
By notpushkin 2026-02-1911:091 reply This is honestly the key difference here. I’m morally okay with using Claude Max Whatever with something like OpenCode because it’s literally the same thing from the usage pattern perspective. Plugging Nanoclaw into it is a whole another thing.
It probably doesn't help that the creator of OpenClaw just got hired by Anthropic's competitor.
This sounds like engineering, finance, and legal got together and decided they were in an untenable position if OpenAI started nudging OpenClaw to burn even more tokens on Anthropic (or just never optimize) + continually updated workarounds to using subscription auth. But I'm sure OpenAI would never do something like that...
At the end of the day, it's the same 'fixed price plan for variable use on a constrained resource' cellular problem: profitability becomes directly linked to actual average usage.
> OpenAI started nudging OpenClaw to burn even more tokens on Anthropic
Not possible: OpenClaw is run by a foundation, and is open source, which means OpenAI has no leverage to do such a thing.
Because open source has always been completely independent of unrelated corporate entities who employ people to work on it?
Because anyone can actually check the code, which means if there's any funny business, someone will come across it eventually and blow it open.
By notpushkin 2026-02-202:211 reply There probably wouldn’t be anything funny-looking – it might look like a genuine mistake in implementation that burns 2× or 3× tokens somehow (which, considering OpenClaw is vibe coded in the purest sense of this term, would blend right in).
Regardless, such things would eventually be found. Just as OpenClaw was tasked with finding and improving science repos (though unwelcome), it could - and very likely will - be tasked with improving its own codebase.
By adjwilley 2026-02-216:02 The bug that was causing the crazy token burn was added on Feb 15. It was claimed to have been fixed on Feb 19 (see https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/pull/20597 ) but it's unclear to me whether that fix has been rolled out yet or if it completely solved the problem. (see https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/issues/21785 )
TLDR: the commit broke caching so the entire conversation history was being treated as new input on each call instead of most of the conversation being cached.
I don't see how it's fair. If I'm paying for usage, and I'm using it, why should Anthropic have a say on which client I use?
I pay them $100 a month and now for some reason I can't use OpenCode? Fuck that.
By dragonwriter 2026-02-199:591 reply You aren't paying for usage, you are paying for the product that the subscription is offered to. If you are paying for usage, well, that's their billed by token-usage API plan, which they are quite happy for you to use with any client you want.
Even worse, if I'm paying a subscription for the product, and I don't want to use the product, what's it to them?
By FeepingCreature 2026-02-1910:141 reply You are free to not use it. You are not free to use the API provided specifically for the product, which you are not explicitly paying for, for a different product.
You can of course use OpenCode or any other project with the API, which is also offered as a separate product. People just don't want to do that because it's not subsidized, ie. more expensive. But the entire reason it's subsidized is that Anthropic can use the data to improve their product.
> But the entire reason it's subsidized is that Anthropic can use the data to improve their product.
This is grade A, absolute crap. It's subsidized because everyone else is subsidizing it, and everyone is doing it because they are trying to lock their consumer share.
The solution is quite simple. Just get the FTC to forbid tie-in sales so that we don't get the huge corporations using their infinite resources to outlive the competition. Anthropic/Amazon/Google/OpenAI/Facebook can offer any type of service they want, but if the access to the API costs $X when offered standalone, then that is the baseline price for anything that depends on the API to work.
By FeepingCreature 2026-02-1912:29 I'm fine with this as well. I just dislike everyone here presenting it like this is Anthropic being unreasonable. Given the product that is offered and why it's being offered, this is completely reasonable to do.
I don't use the Anthropic subscriptions either.
Do you not understand that they run the regular subscription at a huge loss? In exchange they require you to stick with Claude Code.
You are free to use the API.
By regenschutz 2026-02-1913:012 reply Why can't they run the API at a huge loss too then??
By dragonwriter 2026-02-1918:19 Because if you do everything at a huge loss, you run out of runway very quickly.
I’m not saying this is a bubble; I don’t know whether than it is or not. But if it is a bubble, I’ve only seen one bubble this big in tech. When that bubble popped, the only companies that survived kept their costs in check. Some raised a round right before the bubble popped but cost control was always part or their survival.
By duskdozer 2026-02-1913:52 To be honest the fact that they are already clamping down makes me think their situation is getting strained.
> If I'm paying for usage
You are not paying for usage. You are paying for usage via their application.
If their business plan is based on how quickly a human can enter requests and react to the results, and Claude Code is optimized for that, why should you be allowed to use an alternative client that e.g. always tries to saturate the token limits?
Btw API is not for coding, it's designed for pipelines, automation, products. They just kill competition making better software like opencode.
By NewsaHackO 2026-02-1916:37 Is that your belief to what their API should be used for?
But a) I'm not doing that and b) they can just ban that, like they have rate limits. Why ban OpenCode?
They have rate limits, but they also want to control the nozzle, and not all their users use all their allocation all the time.
In reality, heavy subscription users are subsidized by light subscription users. The rate limits aren't everything.
If agent harnesses other than Claude Code consume more tokens than average, or rather, if users of agent harnesses other than CC consume more tokens than average, well, Anthropic wouldn't be unhappy if those consumers had to pay more for their tokens.
By notpushkin 2026-02-1911:11 > If agent harnesses other than Claude Code consume more tokens than average, or rather, if users of agent harnesses other than CC consume more tokens than average
Do they, though?
The speculative reasoning I've seen is that they have optimizations in their CC client that reduces their costs. If that's true, I think it's fair that they can limit subscription usage to their client. If you don't want those optimizations and prefer more freedom, use the API.
By heliumtera 2026-02-1912:18 They rather have yolo permissions to run arbitrary code on your machine and phone home all the time, then opencode having it and phoning home all the time.
By terminalbraid 2026-02-1910:421 reply Stop giving money to the company that doesn't give you what you want.
It is important that the company knows why they are losing customers, though.
You're touching on the eternal App Store debate. "It's my phone, I should be able to install whatever I want on it!" Which is true, but also hasn't been true since the mid-90s (early 2000s at the latest).
By skeledrew 2026-02-1918:23 Not quite though. You can install Claude's apps wherever they're supported, and maybe even fiddle with the source code (I'm unsure). And you can use any other coding apps that you want. The only real restriction is how those apps are allowed to connect to the providers' services, which are running on their servers, etc. There's a movement from "my local domain" to "their remote domain", and they're allowed to have full control of theirs as you - would prefer, I think - full control of yours.
Read the ToS, you are paying to use their products. If you want to use other products that integrate with the Anthropic LLMs they offer a product which is the API. You can use Opencode by connecting your API and being charged per token.
Doesn't that make sense? If you use it more you get charged more, if you use it less you get charged less.
By admx8 2026-02-1912:06 Sure, that's why I'm cancelling my max subscription because I'm tied to opencode :)
But you understand that they changed the ToS today, and that's what I'm complaining about, right? "Read the ToS" isn't an answer to "I don't like this ToS change".
By TZubiri 2026-02-1912:45 I didn't see today's ToS change. But this was always against ToS. OpenClaw specifically is built against tech that breaks ToS.
Probably the ToS change was to make it more clear.
To be fair, the developer is the one breaking the ToS in the most significant way, breaking boilerplate reverse engineering clauses.
But the user also is very aware that they are doing something funny, in order to authenticate, the user is asked to authorize Claude Code, n ot Opencode or OpenClaw, it's clearly a hack and there is no authorization from Anthropic to OpenClaw, and you are not giving Anthropic authorization to give access to OC, the user asks Anthropic to give access to Claude Code, the only reason this works is because OC is pretending to be Claude Code.
The bottom line issue is that as a user you are paying for a subscription to a package that includes an expected usage. That package is not metered, but it is given on the condition that you will use it as it is expected to be used, by chatting manually with the chatbot, which results in a reasonable expected token usage. By using a program that programatically calls the chat interface, the token consumption increases beyond what was part of the original deal, and so the price should be different.
A similar scenario would be if you go to an all you can eat buffet, you pay for a single person, but then you actually unload an army of little clones that start eating the whole buffet. Technically it was an all you can eat buffet and you paid the price right? Well no, come on, don't play dumb.
By everdrive 2026-02-1912:07 Now just imagine the rug-pull if you ever get really dependent on the product.
By arghwhat 2026-02-199:09 Their subscriptions aren't cheap, and it has nothing really to do with them controlling the system.
It's just price differentiation - they know consumers are price sensitive, and that companies wanting to use their APIs to build products so they can slap AI on their portfolio and get access to AI-related investor money can be milked. On the consumer-facing front, they live off branding and if you're not using claude code, you might not associate the tool with Anthropic, which means losing publicity that drives API sales.
It would be less of an issue if Claude-Code was actually the best coding client, and would actually somehow reduce the amount of tokens used. But it's not. I get more things done with less tokens via OpenCode. And in the end, I hit 100% usage at the end of the week anyway.
By cik 2026-02-1911:43 The problem is incentives. The organization selling the per-token model doesn't have the incentive, at scale to have you reduce token consumption. Other technologies do, hence adding value.
By fauigerzigerk 2026-02-199:48 It doesn't really make sense to me because the subscriptions have limits too.
But I agree they can impose whatever user hostile restrictions they want. They are not a monopoly. They compete in a very competitive market. So if they decide to raise prices in whatever shape or form then that's fine.
Arbitrary restrictions do play a role for my own purchasing decisions though. Flexibility is worth something.
By randusername 2026-02-1915:00 I'm with the parent comment. It was inevitable Netflix would end password-sharing. It was inevitable you'd have to pick between freeform usage-based billing and a constrained subscription experience. Using the chatbot subscription as an API was a weird loophole. I don't feel betrayed.
By tom_m 2026-02-1914:42 They tier it. So you are limited until you pay more. So you can't just right away get the access you need.
By agentic_lawyer 2026-02-1912:17 [dead]
By throwaway24778 2026-02-199:173 reply I don't and would never pay for an LLM, but presumably they also want for force ads down your throat eventually, yea? Hard to do if you're just selling API access.
But the idea of an API is more to encourage creativity and other people/companies building products and services on or around your systems. This used to be seen as a positive as it would mean you were an important cog in other peoples products and so more users, exposure, brand awareness etc.
By FeepingCreature 2026-02-1910:17 Anthropic do of course sell API access and you can of course use any product with it.
Compared to the heavily subsidized subscriptions, I don't think API is sold at loss.
Also why would you create a throwaway for this question? Are you trying to rage bait?
By bilekas 2026-02-199:31 > Also why would you create a throwaway for this question? Are you trying to rage bait?
You should never question anyone's route to privacy :)
By throwaway24778 2026-02-199:32 > Are you trying to rage bait?
If you have to ask, it's probably not rage bait. I'm just too lazy to come up with a username.
By butlike 2026-02-1915:46 1:29 until you're able to push to the `main` branch.
Please enjoy these messages from our sponsors.
Every garden eventually becomes a walled garden once enough people are inside.
By butlike 2026-02-1915:47 #earthisamoat
By a10c 2026-02-213:24 Enshittification
By notrealyme123 2026-02-199:551 reply What a weird metaphor for a company which most likely wants nothing more than growing markets.
By b40d-48b2-979e 2026-02-1912:411 reply It's not a metaphor at all, just racism.
By miroljub 2026-02-1913:35 [flagged]
By matdehaast 2026-02-198:351 reply Spotify are probably reacting to https://annas-archive.li/blog/backing-up-spotify.html where basically the whole archive was downloaded
By notrealyme123 2026-02-199:211 reply that was later.
By throwaway920102 2026-02-1915:21 It was known publicly later.
By cryptoegorophy 2026-02-198:145 reply Can you sell ads via api? If answer is no then this “feature” would be at the bottom of the list
By input_sh 2026-02-199:03 They can sell API access via transparent pricing.
Instead, many, many websites (especially in the music industry) have some sort of funky API that you can only get access to if you have enough online clout. Very few are transparent about what "enough clout" even means or how much it'd cost you, and there's like an entire industry of third-party API resellers that cost like 10x more than if you went straight to the source. But you can't, because you first have to fulfill some arbitrary criteria that you can't even know about ahead of time.
It's all very frustrating to deal with.
By 3D30497420 2026-02-198:24 Plus, use of the API is a way to avoid ads. So double-strike against good/available APIs.
By miroljub 2026-02-199:39 Of course they can [1].
Though, in this case, you get free API access to the model.
There is a world where approaches like HTTP 402 are implemented to monetize API usage.
By rawling 2026-02-198:44 Please get this token signed by our ad partner to enable your next ten requests.
By admx8 2026-02-1912:09 What kind of ads they sell in terminal Claude code? Are you bor?
By nananana9 2026-02-1913:32 See [1] for a solution.
[1] https://i.programmerhumor.io/2025/03/778c56a79115a582edb9949...
I think that these companies are understanding that as the barrier to entry to build a frontend gets lower and lower, APIs will become the real moat. If you move away from their UI they will lose ad revenue, viewer stats, in short the ability to optimize how to harness your full attention. It would be great to have some stats on hand and see if and how much active API user has increased decreased in the last two years, as I would not be surprised if it had increased at a much faster pace than in the past.
By whiplash451 2026-02-1911:112 reply > the barrier to entry to build a frontend gets lower
My impression is the opposite: frontend/UI/UX is where the moat is growing because that's where users will (1) consume ads (2) orchestrate their agents.
I agree with you - we are saying the same thing, by restricting their API or making less developer friendly, they want you to be captive in their UI. This might not be true for Anthropic or OpenAI - another child commenter made a comment about ads in CLI, I would not be surprised if in a while we will have product placements in LLM responses exactly as we have it in movies - not a plain ad but just a slightly less subliminal suggestion.
By whiplash451 2026-02-1916:47 I don't think we'll get ads in the enterprise version. There will be ads for individuals and usual business pricing for businesses.
I just think that OAI/Anthropic will try to keep both types of users locked into their walled garden via the UI.
The APIs may have a future, but at our own peril and zero guarantees. It's a tool to create traction and demonstrate capabilities to devs.
By tomasphan 2026-02-1913:16 It’s objectively easier to build a frontend now and therefore that moat is disappearing. What you can argue is the moat is in incumbent advantage at the UI layer, not the UI itself.
By admx8 2026-02-1912:09 What ad revenue? In their terminal cli?
I don't it's particularly hard to figure it out: APIs have been particularly at risk of being exploited for negative purposes due the explosion of AI powered bots
By throwaway24778 2026-02-199:19 This trend well predates widespread use of chatbots.
By sceptic123 2026-02-199:44 It's just the continued slow death of the open internet
By simianwords 2026-02-198:22 I’m predicting that there would be a new movement to make everything an MCP. It’s now easier to consume an api by non technical people.
By systemBuilder 2026-02-1917:17 Google now wants $30,000 a month for customsearch (minimum charge), up from 1c per search or thereabouts in January 2026...
By IAmGraydon 2026-02-1920:23 It's because AI is being trained on all of these APIs and the platforms are at risk of losing what makes them valuable (their data). So they have to take the API down or charge enough that it wouldn't be worth it for an AI.
By whiplash451 2026-02-1911:07 APIs leak profit and control vs their counterpart SDK/platforms. Service providers use them to bootstrap traffic/brand, but will always do everything they can to reduce their usage or sunset them entirely if possible.
By xnx 2026-02-1915:02 What is given can be taken away. Despite the extra difficult this is why unofficial methods (e.g. scraping) are often superior. Soon we'll see more fully independent data scraping done by cameras and microphones.
By BoredPositron 2026-02-1914:19 There is no moat except market saturation and gate keeping for most platforms.
By DataSpace 2026-02-1917:27 You're correct in your observations. In the age of agents, the walls are going up. APIs are no longer a value-add; they're a liability. MCP and the equivalent will be the norm interface. IMO.
Facebook doing that is actually good, to protect consumers from data abuse after incidents like cambridge analytica. They are holding businesses who touches your personal data responsible.
By bilekas 2026-02-199:20 > Facebook doing that is actually good, to protect consumers from data abuse after incidents like cambridge analytica.
There is nothing here stopping cambridge analytica from doing this again, they will provide whatever details needed. But a small pre launch personal project work that might use a facebook publishing application can't be developed or tested without first going through all the bureaucracy.
Nevermind the non profit 'free' application you might want to create on the FB platform, lets say a share chrome extension "Post to my FB", for personal use, you can't do this because you can't create an application without a company and IVA/TAX documents. It's hostile imo.
Before, you could create an app, link your ToS, privacy policy etc, verify your domain via email, and then if users wanted to use your application they would agree, this is how a lot of companies still do it. I'm actually not sure why FB do this specifically.
By wobfan 2026-02-199:53 Facebook knew very early and very well about the data harvesting that was going on at Cambridge Analytica through their APIs. They acted so incredibly slowly and not-harsh that it's IMO hard to believe that they did not implicitly support it.
> to protect consumers
We are talking about Meta. They have never, and will never, protect customers. All they protect is their wealth and their political power.
Is it? I’ve never touched Facebook api, but it sounds ridiculous that you need to provide tax details for DEVELOPMENT. Can’t they implement some kind of a sandbox with dummy data?
By closewith 2026-02-199:03 You can mock their API all you want for development and there are many pre-built options for that, but it you want to touch their systems, they're sending a very clear signal. You must be a corporate with an RBO. Seems prudent to me.
WhatsApp takes bot spam very very seriously, and as a result, there is zero bot spam.
Before you can sign up to build a WhatsApp bot, you need to jump through a million hoops, and after that, every automated message template must be vetted by Meta before it can be sent out, apple style.
I'm glad of this, because unlike SMS and other messaging platforms, WhatsApp is spam free and a pleasure to use.
By bilekas 2026-02-199:21 > WhatsApp is spam free and a pleasure to use.
At least here in Italy whatsapp is a spam house unless you actively update the default privacy settings in-app. There is no discernable difference between SMS and WhatsApp to spammers.
By msh 2026-02-1910:57 WhatsApp is certainly not spam free. I get spam over WhatsApp, less than on telegram but still more than zero.
By is_true 2026-02-1911:02 They just want people to use facebook. If you can see facebook content without being signed in they have a harder time tracking you and showing you ads.
By jauntywundrkind 2026-02-1910:14 This is sort of true!
Spotify in particular is just patently the very worst. They released an amazing and delightful app sdk, allowing for making really neat apps in the desktop app in 2011. Then cancelled it by 2014. It feels like their entire ecosystem has only ever gone downhill. Their car device was cancelled nearly immediately. Every API just gets worse and worse. Remarkable to see a company have only ever such a downward slide. The Spotify Graveyard is, imo, a place of singnificantly less honor than the Google Graveyard. https://web.archive.org/web/20141104154131/https://gigaom.co...
But also, I feel like this broad repulsive trend is such an untenable position now that AI is here. Trying to make your app an isolated disconnected service is a suicide pact. Some companies will figure out how to defend their moat, but generally people are going to prefer apps that allow them to use the app as they want, increasingly, over time. And they are not going to be stopped even if you do try to control terms!
Were I a smart engaged company, I'd be trying to build WebMCP access as soon as possible. Adoption will be slow, this isn't happening fast, but people who can mix human + agent activity on your site are going to be delighted by the experience, and that you will spread!
WebMCP is better IMHO than conventional APIs because it layers into the experience you are already having. It's not a separate channel; it can build and use the session state of your browsing to do the things. That's a huge boon for users.
By iamacyborg 2026-02-1911:33 Given the Cambridge Analytica scandal, I don’t take too much issue to FB making their APIs a little tougher to use
By baby 2026-02-1912:29 Not sure how relevant this comment is
By endymi0n 2026-02-1916:40 „Open Access APIs are like a subway. You use them to capture a market and then you get out.“
— Erdogan, probably.
By windexh8er 2026-02-1912:16 Everyone has heard the word "enshittification" at this point and this falls in line. But if you haven't read the book [0] it's a great deep dive into the topical area.
But the real issue is that these companies, once they have any market leverage, do things in their best interest to protect the little bit of moat they've acquired.
By TZubiri 2026-02-1910:42 But this ban is precisely on circumventing the API.
By mdrzn 2026-02-199:19 APIs are the best when they let you move data out and build cool stuff on top. A lot of big platforms do not really want that anymore. They want the data to stay inside their silo so access gets slower harder and more locked down. So you are not just yelling at the cloud this feels pretty intentional.
By theshrike79 2026-02-2021:07 "Are becoming", you sweet summer child.
It all started with Facebook closing pretty much everything and making FB Messenger a custom protocol instead of XMPP.
And whatever API access is still available is so shit and badly managed that even a household name billion dollar gaming company couldn't get a fast-lane for approval to use specific API endpoints.
The final straw was Twitter effectively closing up their API "to protect from bots", which in fact did NOT protect anyone from bots. All it did was prevent legitimate entertaining and silly bots from acting on the platform, the actual state-controlled trolls just bought the blue checkmark and continued as-is.
By dakial1 2026-02-1923:30 That is not new, just new with APIs.
The usual cycle with startups is to:
- Start being very open, as this brings people developing over the platforms and generates growth
- As long as they are growing, VC money will come to pay for everything. This is the scale up phase
- Then comes the VC exit, IPO or whatever
- Now the new owners don't want user growth, they want margin growth. This is the company phase
- Companies then have monetize their users (why not ads?), close up free, or high-maintenance stuff that do not bring margin
- and report that sweet $$$ growth quarter after quarter
...until a new startup comes in and starts the cycle over again, destroying all the value the old company had.
A mix of Enshittification and Innovators Dilemma theories
By canibal 2026-02-1915:37 You're not wrong. Reddit & Elon started it and everyone laughed at them and made a stink. But my guess is the "last dying gasp of the freeloader" /s wasn't enough to dissuade other companies from jumping on the bandwagon, cause fiduciary responsibility to shareholders reigns supreme at the end of the day.
By MillionOClock 2026-02-193:2211 reply I really hope someone from any of those companies (if possible all of them) would publish a very clear statement regarding the following question: If I build a commercial app that allows my users to connect using their OAuth token coming from their ChatGPT/Claude etc. account, do they allow me (and their users) to do this or not?
I totally understand that I should not reuse my own account to provide services to others, as direct API usage is the obvious choice here, but this is a different case.
I am currently developing something that would be the perfect fit for this OAuth based flow and I find it quite frustrating that in most cases I cannot find a clear answer to this question. I don't even know who I would be supposed to contact to get an answer or discuss this as an independent dev.
EDIT: Some answers to my comment have pointed out that the ToS of Anthropic were clear, I'm not saying they aren't if taken in a vacuum, yet in practice even after this being published some confusion remained online, in particular regarding wether OAuth token usage was still ok with the Agent SDK for personal usage. If it happens to be, that would lead to other questions I personally cannot find a clear answer to, hence my original statement. Also, I am very interested about the stance of other companies on this subject.
Maybe I am being overly cautious here but I want to be clear that this is just my personal opinion and me trying to understand what exactly is allowed or not. This is not some business or legal advice.
I don't see how they can get more clear about this, considering they have repeatedly answered it the exact same way.
Subscriptions are for first-party products (claude.com, mobile and desktop apps, Claude Code, editor extensions, Cowork).
Everything else must use API billing.
The biggest reason why this is confusing is the Claude Agent SDK[0] will use subscription/oauth credentials if present. The terms update implies that there's some use cases where that's ok and other use cases (commercial?) where using their SDK on a user's device violates terms.
By theturtletalks 2026-02-193:431 reply Had the same question, comment below quotes their docs saying Agent SDK using oAuth token is also not allowed.
By stavros 2026-02-199:49 It doesn't quote their docs, it quotes the page this post is about.
By BoorishBears 2026-02-195:493 reply The SDK is Claude Code in a harnesss, so it works with your credentials the same way CC does.
But they're stating you can only use your subscription for your personal usage, not someone else's for their usage in your product.
I honestly think they're being short sighted not just giving a "3rd party quota" since they already show users like 4 quotas.
If the fear is 3rd party agents screwing up the math, just make it low enough for entry level usage. I suspect 3rd party token usage is bi-modal where some users just need enough to kick tires, but others are min-maxing for how mamy tokens they can burn as if that's its own reward
How can they be clearer that the Agents SDK is not allowed?
> OAuth authentication (used with Free, Pro, and Max plans) is intended exclusively for Claude Code and Claude.ai. Using OAuth tokens obtained through Claude Free, Pro, or Max accounts in any other product, tool, or service — including the Agent SDK — is not permitted and constitutes a violation of the Consumer Terms of Service.
By BoorishBears 2026-02-206:16 Confidently incorrect, personal usage of Agent SDK is powered by logging into Claude Code: you are not logging into the SDK (or your own application).
What's not allowed is offering OAuth authentication in your own product built with the SDK: https://x.com/trq212/status/2024212380142752025?s=20
I agree, it'd actually be great if they did give maybe $5 or $10 worth of API tokens per month to max subscribers, since they're likely to be the most likely to actually build stuff that uses the Claude APIs.
I built a quick thing to download YouTube videos and transcribe them using with whisper, but it kind of feels clunky to summarize them using the claude CLI, even though that works.
By marcus_holmes 2026-02-198:31 just ran into this myself. I got Claude Code to build a tool that calls Claude for <stuff>. Now I have to create a console account and do the API thing and it sucks balls.
By chasd00 2026-02-1919:57 > not someone else's for their usage in your product.
what if the "product" is a setup of documents that concisely describe the product so that a coding agent can reliable produce it correctly. Then the install process becomes "agent, write and host this application for the user's personal use on their computer". Now all software is for personal use only. Companies released these things and, like Frankenstein, there's a strong possibility they will turn on their creators.
And at that point, you might as well use OpenRouter's PKCE and give users the option to use other models..
These kinds of business decisions show how these $200.00 subscriptions for their slot/infinite jest machines basically light that $200.00 on fire, and in general how unsustainable these business models are.
Can't wait for it all to fail, they'll eventually try to get as many people to pay per token as possible, while somehow getting people to use their verbose antigentic tools that are able to inflate revenue through inefficient context/ouput shenanigans.
By hombre_fatal 2026-02-196:034 reply I think the subscription pricing exists because it’s a far more palatable way to bill people for day to day personal use.
I used Claude back when API per token pricing was the only option and it was bad for all the usual reasons pay-per-use sucks compared to flat billing: you’re constantly thinking about cost. Like trying to watch a Netflix video with a ticker in the corner counting up the cents you owe them.
I don’t understand your claim that they want people paying per token - the subscription is the opposite of that, and it also has upsides for them as a business since most people don’t saturate the usage limits, and the business gets to stuff a bunch of value-adds on a bundle offering which is generally a more lucrative and enticing consumer pricing model.
The bundle only works if it’s +EV for them. A lot of analyses (though not all - it’s complicated) say that the $200/mo bundle (and certainly the $20/mo bundle) costs more than that for most users, and the bundle is currently a loss leader. If so, then eventually prices will need to go up, and API per usage pricing will seem much more attractive.
Even if it more expensive, people will prefer subscription pricing over pay per use.
When you ask it to do something and it goes off the rails, the payment plans have wildly different effects:
Subscription- oh well, let's try again with a different prompt
Pay per use- I just wasted money, this product sucks
Even if it is less common than not, it has an outsized impact on how people feel using it.
And it also caps your maximum expenses. A subscription user don’t have to worry something goes wrong and end up with a huge bill.
By gbear605 2026-02-1915:37 At least theoretically, the bill would work on a “wallet” system, where you fill up your account with $X every month, and then you’re charged per use. That keeps there from being a huge bill, worst case you’re just on hold until the next fill up.
I'm not going to say what platform but it's an agentic coding tool, I know for a fact the platform loses in the mid $200.00s on a $20.00 plan. 10:1 loss leader for customer acquisition is crazy, and they'll have to make that up in the future somehow, they're all fumbling on how to vendor lock their customers, and its not necessarily clear they're going to be able to.
I expect some big falls from 10 figure businesses in the next year or two as they realize this is impossible. They've built an industry on the backs of gambling addicts and dopamine feins (I'm generalizing but this is a thing with LLM users (just read vibe coders posts on twitter, they're slot machine users). Ask sports betting operators from back in 2019-2022 how it worked out for them when they tried to give out 1-2k a year to attract new customers, and then realized their customers will switch platforms in an instant they see a new shiny offer. Look up the Fanduel Founders "exit" for an insight into this.
They have to eventually stop catering to the slot machine users, which are generally paying for these hugely lossy flat rate subscriptions, and somehow get them used to a different type of payment model, or cater strictly to enterprise... Which also aren't going to tolerate paying 20k a month in tokens per developer, is my guess.... Lots of delicate pricing problems to figure out for all these companies.
That's crazy. I'm already barely willing to pay $10/month on Github Copilot. A product I love. Best value for money.
If they pump it up to $200 (or to $20). I'll simply use crappier local model. It won't be as good. But I already own my gaming PC that can run local models, and electricity is cheap.
By chasd00 2026-02-1920:05 > I'll simply use crappier local model. It won't be as good. But I already own my gaming PC that can run local models,
this is UNIX and Linux all over again lol. It's pretty amazing and nostalgic.
Calling LLM users "slot machine users" makes no sense and tells me that you just have an axe to grind.
By dakolli 2026-02-206:47 Found the guy who's chasing the llm output dragon. Get your fix bud.
The addictive gaming/gambling mechanics built into llm interfaces has been extensively written on, and its very visible to anyone with an eye for these things.
By askl 2026-02-1910:52 True, they should be called "slop machine users" instead.
By CuriouslyC 2026-02-1914:05 The cost difference is pretty staggering for the same usage. Being on the sub hacks your reward system to push you to be productive, legitimately hitting limits feels like a win, and you start looking for ways to max your utilization %. A lot of people get quite obsessive about it. The sub is 100% the innovation that makes Claude Code "work."
By mlrtime 2026-02-1911:25 People 100% want subscriptions in this space.
The alternative is AWS where you need to be a billing expert to keep costs locked at $20/month.
By cameronh90 2026-02-1911:00 If the pay-per-use cost predictable enough, it’s less of an issue. That’s how electricity works and it’s fine.
The issue with Claude Code is it’s not at all obvious how any given task or query translates to cost. I was finding some days I spent very little and other days cost a fortune despite what seemed to me to be similar levels of usage.
By baq 2026-02-196:52 It’s been obvious from the start that the $200 point is the free tier
By MillionOClock 2026-02-193:481 reply You are talking about Anthropic and indeed compared to OpenAI or GitHub Copilot they have seemed to be the ones with what I would personally describe as a more restrictive approach.
On the other hand OpenAI and GitHub Copilot have, as far as I know, explicitly allowed their users to connect to at least some third party tools and use their quotas from there, notably to OpenCode.
What is unclear to me is whether they are considering also allowing commercial apps to do that. For instance if I publish a subscription based app and my users pay for the app itself rather than for LLM inference, would that be allowed?
By cahaya 2026-02-1910:08 Same question here. A while ago I read rumors OpenAI might build a "Login with OpenAI" (comparable to login with Apple, Facebook, Google) so people can also use their existing sub in commercial apps. Hope it's true.
By qwertox 2026-02-1911:03 Then why does the SDK support subscription usage? Can I at least use my subscription for my own use of the SDK?
By Imustaskforhelp 2026-02-195:19 Quick question but what if I use claude code itself for the purpose?
https://github.com/rivet-dev/sandbox-agent/tree/main/gigacod... [I saw this inShow HN: Gigacode – Use OpenCode's UI with Claude Code/Codex/Amp] (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912682)
This can make Opencode work with Claude code and the added benefit of this is that Opencode has a Typescript SDK to automate and the back of this is still running claude code so technically should work even with the new TOS?
So in the case of the OP. Maybe Opencode TS SDK <-> claude code (using this tool or any other like this) <-> It uses the oauth sign in option of Claude code users?
Also, zed can use the ACP protocol itself as well to make claude code work iirc. So is using zed with CC still allowed?
> I don't see how they can get more clear about this, considering they have repeatedly answered it the exact same way.
This is confusing quite frankly, there's also the claude agent sdk thing which firloop and others talked about too. Some say its allowed or not. Its all confusing quite frankly.
By theturtletalks 2026-02-193:402 reply What if you wrap the service using their Agent SDK?
That should be fine, because it's still using their tooling. And this seems like the better way to go. I have a couple of tools that work like this. I think the issue is mostly 3rd party harnesses that seek to do the same as Claude Code. And it seems reasonable that Anthropic decides how you can use the subscription, because it's heavily subsidized. Get a Claude $200 sub and max out the usage limits, then compare that usage to the cost of using their API. The difference is significant, which is why people are getting multiple $200 subs rather than paying for API usage (and I have seen reports where they are cracking down on this as well.)
Okay, I was mistaken. The tooling I was speaking of uses Claude Code rather than the SDK. One uses the Zed ACP protocol. I'm not sure about the other. I should have said Claude Code rather than the SDK. For example, I can run a session through one of the tools, and then access that session directly in Claude Code. It's still Claude though. It seems the important element is that you're not using OAuth tokens from a sub to use in a different tool. If you go through Claude Code, then Claude Code is handling everything and giving your tool the output. Thanks for the correction.
By stavros 2026-02-1911:27 Yeah, I'm designing some stuff right now and I'm having it run Claude Code headless rather than use the Agents SDK for this exact reason.
By artdigital 2026-02-193:272 reply That’s very clearly a no, I don’t understand why so many people think this is unclear.
You can’t use Claude OAuth tokens for anything. Any solution that exists worked because it pretended/spoofed to be Claude Code. Same for Gemini (Gemini CLI, Antigravity)
Codex is the only one that got official blessing to be used in OpenClaw and OpenCode, and even that was against the ToS before they changed their stance on it.
Is Codex ok with any other third party applications, or just those?
By prodigycorp 2026-02-196:341 reply Yes. You can build third party applications on top of codex app server. All open source. https://developers.openai.com/codex/app-server/
It mentions 'Inside your own product', but not sure if that means also your own commercial application.Codex app-server is the interface Codex uses to power rich clients (for example, the Codex VS Code extension). Use it when you want a deep integration inside your own product.By prodigycorp 2026-02-1910:52 I think it's permissible. Zed uses it to power their Codex integration. OpenAI has been quite vocal about it.
By artdigital 2026-02-195:051 reply By default, assume no. The lack of any official integration guide should be a clear sign. Even saying that you reverse-engineer Codex for apps to pretend to be Codex makes it clear that this is not an officially endorsed thing to do
By turblety 2026-02-196:55 Codex is Open Source though, so I wonder at what stage me adding features to Codex is different from me starting a new project and using the subscription.
But I believe OpenAI does let you use their subscription in third parties, so not an issue anyway.
By theLiminator 2026-02-194:14 Interested to know this too
Presumably because their flat rate pricing is based off their ability to manage token use via their first-party tools.
A third-party tool may be less efficient in saving costs (I have heard many of them don't hit Anthropic LLMs' caches as well).
Would you be willing to pay more for your plan, to subsidize the use of third-party tools by others?
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Note, afaik, Anthropic hasn't come out and said this is the reason, but it fits.
Or, it could also just be that the LLM companies view their agent tools as the real moat, since the models themselves aren't.
What if I'm only willing to pay if it support by tool of choice? Would you pay for a streaming service that enforces a certain TV brand?
Given the latest changes on Claude Code where they hide the actions
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47033622
it's likely more the other way around. They control how fast your subscription tokens are burned
By kgwgk 2026-02-198:53 > What if I'm only willing to pay if it support by tool of choice?
I don’t want to say that you won’t be missed but they will get over it.
But wouldn't a less efficient tool simply consume your 5-hour/weekly quota faster? There's gotta be something else, probably telemetry, maybe hoping people switch to API without fighting, or simply vendor lock-in.
> But wouldn't a less efficient tool simply consume your 5-hour/weekly quota faster?
Maybe.
First, Anthropic is also trying to manage user satisfaction as well as costs. If OpenCode or whatever burns through your limits faster, are you likely to place the blame on OpenCode?
Maybe a good analogy was when DoorDash/GrubHub/Uber Eats/etc signed up restaurants to their system without their permission. When things didn't go well, the customers complained about the restaurants, even though it wasn't their fault, because they chose not to support delivery at scale.
Second, flat-rate pricing, unlike API pricing, is the same for cached vs uncached iirc, so even if total token limits are the same, less caching means higher costs.
> 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.
By KingMob 2026-03-068:41 But again, there's other things to consider. People are more likely to blame Anthropic, not OpenCode, when they run out of tokens.
By patapong 2026-02-1910:40 Presumably most people also do not use their full quota when using the official client, whereas third-party clients could be set up to start back up every 5 hours to use 100% of the quota every day and week.
It's the whole "unlimited storage" discussion again.
Why does it matter to the free buffet manager where do you consume the food? We may never know.
By koolala 2026-02-1911:34 Because it could be over longer time periods than buffet hours.
By esafak 2026-02-195:34 They think their position is strong enough to lock users in. I'm not so sure.
By whatsupdog 2026-02-195:35 It's enshittification - for those who didn't know.
By blackoil 2026-02-195:35 They'll own entire pipeline interface, conduit, backend. Interface is what people get habitual to. If I am a regular user of Claude Code, I may not shift to competitor for 10-20% gains in cost.
By xigoi 2026-02-196:01 They want that sweet vendor lock-in.
By SeanAnderson 2026-02-193:43 I think you're just trying to see ambiguity where it doesn't exist because the looser interpretation is beneficial to you. It totally makes sense why you'd want that outcome and I'm not faulting you for it. It's just that, from a POV of someone without stake in the game, the answer seems quite clear.
By eleventyseven 2026-02-193:273 reply It is pretty obviously no. API keys billed by the token, yes, Oauth to the flat rate plans no.
> OAuth authentication (used with Free, Pro, and Max plans) is intended exclusively for Claude Code and Claude.ai. Using OAuth tokens obtained through Claude Free, Pro, or Max accounts in any other product, tool, or service — including the Agent SDK — is not permitted and constitutes a violation of the Consumer Terms of Service.
By MillionOClock 2026-02-193:411 reply If you look at this tweet [1] and in particular responses under it, it still seems to me like some parts of it need additional clarification. For instance, I have seen some people interpret the tweet as meaning using the OAuth token is actually ok for personal experimentation with the Agent SDK, which can be seen as a slight contradiction with what you quoted. A parent tweet also mentioned the docs clean up causing some confusion.
None of this is legal advice, I'm just trying to understand what exactly is allowed or not.
By kahnclusions 2026-02-194:561 reply A tweet is not a ToS.
By AlotOfReading 2026-02-195:09 Then they should speak to legal about fixing the ToS before making public statements about their intentions with it. It won't look good to show up at arbitration and have to explain why your public comms contradict your ToS.
By margalabargala 2026-02-195:282 reply Flat rate does not imply unlimited.
>A flat fee, also referred to as a flat rate or a linear rate refers to a pricing structure that charges a single fixed fee for a service, regardless of usage.
By margalabargala 2026-02-1913:551 reply That's one definition. There are others.
I'm sure you can use context clues to figure this one out. You're so close! Just put the pieces together.
By croes 2026-02-1919:44 There are no other definitions that‘s why they why internet flat rates got throttled instead of capped. Throttling is the loop bole because you paid for usage not for speed but flat rate with a cap is simply a lie.
By master-lincoln 2026-02-199:192 reply What else would it mean?
By HDThoreaun 2026-02-199:291 reply That you are buying a bundle and it doesnt matter how much of the bundle you use you pay the same amount every billing period?
By master-lincoln 2026-02-1914:241 reply So if I buy entry to the swimming hall that allows me to be there for 4 hours but also allows me to leave earlier you would call that a flat rate?
I have never noticed there are people who interpret it that way.
By HDThoreaun 2026-02-1919:06 If it allows you 4 hours total per month yea
By margalabargala 2026-02-1913:571 reply That you are charged a single fixed fee regardless of usage.
Nothing about that prevents a usage cap.
By croes 2026-02-1919:41 A cap pretty much is the opposite of regardless of usage
> OAuth authentication (used with Free, Pro, and Max plans) is intended exclusively for Claude Code and Claude.ai.
I think this is pretty clear - No.
By merb 2026-02-196:33 So it’s forbidden to use the Claude Mac app. I would say the ToS as it is, can’t be enforced
By laksjhdlka 2026-02-193:29 Anthropic has published a very clear statement. It's "no".
Does https://happy.engineering/ need to use the API keys or can use oauth? It's basically a frontend for claude-cli.
By kzahel 2026-02-195:20 It doesn't even touch auth right?
""" Usage policy
Acceptable use Claude Code usage is subject to the Anthropic Usage Policy. Advertised usage limits for Pro and Max plans assume ordinary, individual usage of Claude Code and the Agent SDK """
That tool clearly falls under ordinary individual use of Claude code. https://yepanywhere.com/ is another such tool. Perfectly ordinary individual usage.
https://yepanywhere.com/sdk-auth-clarification.html
The TOS are confusing because just below that section it talks about authentication/credential use. If an app starts reading api keys / credentials, that starts falling into territory where they want a hard line no.
If it's a wrapper that invokes the `claude` binary then I believe it's fine.
Is there a way to legally or even practically prevent this? `claude` CLI execution in a shell is certainly included in the subscription - it’s the product.
By ardacinar 2026-02-198:12 Practically; yes. MMOs have been doing this kind of thing (Preventing alteration / automation of the client) for ages now.
Usually, it is already stated in their documentation (auth section). If a statement is vague, treat it as a no. It is not worth the risk when they can ban you at any time. For example, ChatGPT allows it, but Claude and Gemini do not.
By MillionOClock 2026-02-193:312 reply Maybe I am missing something from the docs of your link, but I unfortunately don't think it actually states anything regarding allowing users to connect and use their Codex quota in third party apps.
By s-lambert 2026-02-193:48 https://x.com/thdxr/status/2013010664776683644
I can't find anything official from OpenAI, but they have worked with the OpenCode people to support using your ChatGPT subscription in OpenCode.
From TFA: “OAuth authentication (used with Free, Pro, and Max plans) is intended exclusively for Claude Code and Claude.ai. Using OAuth tokens obtained through Claude Free, Pro, or Max accounts in any other product, tool, or service — including the Agent SDK — is not permitted and constitutes a violation of the Consumer Terms of Service.”
By MillionOClock 2026-02-193:59 The comment you are responding to is about ChatGPT/Codex, not Claude.
By raincole 2026-02-193:57 They're not asking if Claude forbids it. They're asking if OpenAI (Codex, specifically) allows it.
By direwolf20 2026-02-196:23 Not allowed. They've already banned people for this.
By itissid 2026-02-193:47 One set of applications to build with subscription is to use the claude-go binary directly. Humanlayer/Codelayer projects on GitHub do this. Granted those are not ideal for building a subscription based business to use oathu tokens from Claude and OpenaAI. But you can build a business by building a development env and gating other features behind paywall or just offering enterprise service for certain features like vertical AI(redpanada) offerings knowledge workers, voice based interaction(there was a YC startup here the other day doing this I think), structured outputs and workflows. There is lots to build on.
By OGEnthusiast 2026-02-193:42 [dead]
