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Comment by creativeSlumber | Hacker News Reader

> A Claude Code subscription should not work with other software.

why not though? aren't you paying for the model usage regardless of the client you use?

No, you are paying to use Claude code… it uses the model underneath, but you aren’t paying for raw model usage. For whatever reason, Anthropic thinks this is the best way to divide up their market.

They want to charge more for direct access to the model.

> No, you are paying to use Claude code

Why would anyone pay a subscription for barebones LLM agent?

You can beat that drum all you want, but you know it's bullshit. People pay the subscription for the AI, not the tool that consumes it. That tool being crap is why everyone started using third-party tools.

The reason they are blocking third-party usage is they want developers to use only their models and no competitors.

Except if you pay the per-token rate, it will work just fine with the other tools. It is only the subscription that doesn’t work.

That's not up to you or me. I think it's pretty clear by the phrase "Claude Code subscription" that it's meant for only "Claude Code". Why are you confused?

This could be so easily abused by companies who spend thousands of dollars per month for API costs you could just reverse engineer it and use the subscription tokens to get that down to a few hundred

That phrase isn't the official one. It's "The Max Plan" which "combines Claude Desktop and mobile apps and Claude Code in one subscription".

Yes, so... pretty clearly not OpenCode.

Yeah, exactly.

IDK if Anthropic wants to offer a service at below cost, I don't think they should gate keep which client you access that service over. Or in other terms, I won't use a service that locks me into a client I don't like.

> IDK if Anthropic wants to offer a service at below cost, I don't think they should gate keep which client you access that service over.

Are you going to say why you think they shouldn't? You didn't give a reason.

How do you draw that conclusion? If Anthropic wants to offer a service at below cost, they seem a lot more justified in restricting how and where they subsidize usage.

Yeah fair, I could've chosen better words. My conclusion is: "I don't want to pay for that", not "they shouldn't be able to do that".

That seems mutual. They don’t want you to use this service with an arbitrary client and you don’t want to use this service that won’t allow an arbitrary client. So both of you don’t want the relationship. Seems fine.

For my part, I’m fine understanding that bundling allows for discounting and I would prefer to enable that.

> Or in other terms, I won't use a service that locks me into a client I don't like.

Then don't! Or just use the API which doesn't lock you into any client.

I don't think they are confused. They are simply challenging the assertion that the model should not work with other software. Which is fair because there is a lot of precedent around whether a service can dictate how it must be consumed. It's not a simple answer and there are good reasons for both sides. Whichever path we take will have wide consequences and shape our future in a very distinct way. So it is an important decision, and ultimately up to us, as a society to influence and guide.

"challenging the assertion that the model should not work with other software"

This has nothing to do with "the model". You can use "the models" through the API for anything.

This has to do with access to a specific product being abused to then get low-cost API access for other use cases

Can I script and scrape Claude Code to provide the exact same data for consumption by the banned client? (This sounds like an interesting challenge for Claude Code to try...)

Yes they even offer an SDK for it now so "scraping" is not required

Claude Code provides a headless mode that you can do this exact same thing with:

$ claude -p “fix the eslint in file XYZ”

It’s like saying Netflix is wrong to require an official Netflix client to access their service. Total dud of an argument if you ask me.

Well, they are wrong, and the argument is still a dud.

Netflix would not even exist if you could just freely download all of the media to your computer and play it anytime because of licensing agreements and other factors. So you can think that they are wrong but that's not really rooted in reality or practicality.

That is possible, was always possible, and will continue to be possible, judging by the availability of 4K rips available via piracy.

But they get telemetry, feedback, good will, etc. That’s one reason why usage is discounted to a subscription fee.

Good will, huh?

You don’t think Claude Code has generated good will for Anthropic? People just liking a brand is powerful.

I don't think this move is generating good will.

A tiny minority being inconvenienced because they are breaking terms of use is fine for them vs pricing claude subscriptions at the true cost.

They don't get any telemetry or feedback data from me, as I've turned all that off. So why should I be limited to CC?

If you don’t want to use CC, just use the API

> aren't you paying for the model usage

No, you’re paying for “Claude Code” usage.

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