there's a famous quote that i think captures the spirit of what i'm trying to express

"you're not wrong, you're just an asshole" - the dude to walter.

(no particular offense directed, the you here is of course the "royal you").

I just fundamentally am resistant to calling the "little people" the assholes.

Look, in my view, Anthropic made a mistake. And that's okay, we all do.

But I'm not going to let a multi-billion dollar company off the hook because some nobodies called them out on their bluff. No, Anthropic made the mistake, and now they're fixing it.

Ultimately, this came out of greed - but not the greed of the little people. Anthropic chose aggressive pricing because, like all somewhat large corporations, they usually opt for cheating instead of winning by value. What I mean is, Anthropic didn't strive for The Best product, they instead used their capital as collateral to sell a service at loss to squeeze competitors, particularly small, non-incumbent ones.

And, that's fine, it's a legitimate business strategy. Walmart does it, Amazon does it, whatever. But if that backfires, I don't care and I won't extend sympathy. Such a strategy is inherently risky. They gambled, people called their bluff, and now they're folding.