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.
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.
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.
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.
It would not completely de-legitimize it. Maybe a government doesn't want anyone to know they are surveilling a suspect. But it definitely would reduce cash flow at commercial spyware companies, which could put some out of business.
It feels like Anthropic's models from 6 months ago. I mean, it's great progress in the open weight world, but I don't have time to use anything less than the very best for the coding I do. At the same time, if Anthropic and OpenAI disappeared tomorrow, I could survive with GLM-5.
Claude: you get rate-limited with one prompt so hard to validate 4.6
Codex: better with rate-limits, 5.2 strong with logic problems
Cursor: cursor auto - a bit dumb still but I use the most for writing not really thinking, it's also good at searching through codebase and doing summaries etc.
Claude / Codex still miss tons of scaffolding for sane development or it's due to sandboxes or sth. Like for example you ask in /plan mode to check think with link to github and it does navigate github via curl, hitting rate limits etc. instead of just git clone, repomix etc. so scaffolding still matters a lot. Like it still lacks a tons of common sense
I have Claude Max plan which makes me feel like I could code anything. I'm not talking about vibe-coding greenfield projects. I mean, I can throw it in any huge project, let it figure out the architecture, how to test and run things, generate a report on where it thinks I should start... Then I start myself, while asking claude code for very very specific edits and tips.
I also can create a feedback loop and let it run wild, which also works but that needs also planning and a harness, and rules etc. Usually not worth it if you need to jump between a million things like me.
Smooth sailing and still frustrating at times. I have very high standards for the code that goes into production at my company. Nothing is getting yoloed. Everything is getting reviewed. Using Claude Code with a Max plan.
There are a lot of comments not liking zulip. I wonder if the like/dislike feeling is tied to the size of the user/company of the poster. My experience is the zulip works very well in my small 3 person fully remote business. Maybe the UI workflow of Zulip breaks down with larger numbers of users?
I used it in a 3 person company and I hated it for many of the reasons stated here. The topic based UX is terrible in practice and the whole thing feels janky and ugly.
I simply do not believe that all of these people can and want to setup a CI. Some maybe, but even after the agent will recommend it only a fraction of people would actually do it. Why would they?
But if you setup CI, you can pick up the mobile site with your phone, chat with Copilot about a feature, then ask it to open a PR, let CI run, iterate a couple of times, then merge the PR.
All the while you're playing a wordle and reading the news on the morning commute.
It's actually a good workflow for silly throw away stuff.
No, they won't be. Inference costs will continue to drop, and subscription prices will follow as AI is increasingly commoditized. There are 6 different providers in the top 10 models on openrouter. In a commoditized market, there will be no $60/month subscriptions.
It's also true that their inference costs are being heavily subsidized. For example, if you calculate Oracles debt into OpenAIs revenue, they would be incredibly far underwater on inference.
Not is it only dumb, but it is plain unimplementable. Are they saying the HMI interfaces on CNC machines need to be able to parse the GCode generated by any of dozens of CAM software options out there and divine if it might be gun related? That is not possible.
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