Everyone goes on and on how "anthtropic has the right to do this", sure, we also have the right to work around these blocks and fight against behavior that uses their position to create a walled garden and vendor lock-in using anti-competitive pricing and temporary monopoly on the 'best' model.

You're not wrong, but most people on this forum are generally positive about companies using private APIs (which this is) for a competitive advantage.

This is pretty undisputed I think... So if we're going to condemn anthropic for it, it'd be pretty one-sided unless we also took it up with any other companies doing so, like Apple, Google, ... And frankly basically all closed source companies.

It's just coincidentally more obvious with this Claude code API because the only difference between it and the public one is the billing situation...

The only basis we'd have to argue otherwise is that the subscription predates Claude code

https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-pro (years ago)

But I didn't think we're strangers to companies pivoting the narrative like this