At some point they might decide they have enough demand and inertia from enterprise to reduce the subsidy. But to say “it’s doomed” really misses the fact that it has already been immensely successful.
For me Opus 4.8 was a slow model with a strong habit of talking down to me in an obnoxious way that would not be possible to prompt away. GPT 5.5 is now my main driver for serious work.
That doesn't mean those models are stupid or just pretending. I do think that Fable is the best we can get right now. Nevertheless, I prefer OpenAI models for easier tasks where the primary output is text and explanations, not code.
But Anthropic’s games with Fable and false humility is getting a bit old. And increasingly it seems like Agent Orange is gonna implode rather than team up with someone like Sam Altman to form America’s Third Reich. Particularly post-midterms.
Nonetheless, wish there was a third option on par with them two. Maybe there is I need to investigate.