> I suspect they are all a bunch of shysters opportunistically abusing us.

At this point we conclusively know that.

What frustrates me is the constant unshakeable belief here that subscriptions must be running at a loss, based on zero evidence.

Anthropic have said they have 85% margin, which presumably means their normal API pricing. 85% margin is insane. No business deserves that. We can easily assume the subscription is running at a more sane margin like 5-15%.