Oh man.

What a wonderful way to stop people from using your LLM.

All these AI companies trying to get everyone to be locked into their toolchains is just hilariously short sighted. Particularly for dev tools. It's the sure path to get devs to hate your product.

And for what? The devs are already paying a pretty penny to use your LLM. Why do you also need to force them to using your toolkit?

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esskay 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I imagine its a case of the providers not wanting to admit its costing them a fortune because suddenly all these low-medium usage accounts are now their highest use ones.

Not saying it's right. But it's also not exactly a secret that they are all taking VERY heavy losses even with pricey subscriptions.

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jsheard 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> But it's also not exactly a secret that they are all taking VERY heavy losses even with pricey subscriptions.

It's absurd, there's people out there paying $200 for the equivalent of $1600 in API credits. Of course there's a catch! What did you expect!

https://bsky.app/profile/borum.dev/post/3meynioealc2x

That tool is "ccusage" if you're a Claude subscriber and want to see what the damage will be if/when Anthropic decides to pull the rug.

	▲	jwpapi 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		its 200 to 6000 and I use the 6000. I also use an antigravity subscription for probably another 6k (I don’t use them fully tho,) I cant believe this is net positive for them.

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usef- 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is a reality that when they control the client it can be significantly cheaper for them to run: the Claude code creator has mentioned that the client was carefully designed to maximise prompt caching. If you use a different client, your usage patterns can be different and it may cost them significantly more to serve you.

This isn't a sudden change, either: they were always up-front that subscriptions are for their own clients/apps, and API is for external clients. They don't document the internal client API/auth (people extracted it).

I think a more valid complaint might be "The API costs too much" if you prefer alternative clients. But all providers are quite short on compute at the moment from what I hear, and they're likely prioritising what they subsidise.

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overgard 12 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The tool thing is kind of infuriating at the moment. I've been using Claude on the command line so I can use my subscription. It's fine, but it also feels kind of silly, like I'm looking at ccusage and it seems like I'm using way more $ in tokens than I'm paying for with the subscription. Which is a win for me, but, I don't really feel like Claude Code is such a compelling product that it's going to keep me locked in to their model, so I don't know why they're creating such a steep discount to get me to use it. I'm perfectly fine using Codex's tools, or whatever. I dunno, it seems like way more cost effective to use the first party tools but I'm not sure why they really want that. Are the third party tools just really inefficient with API usage or something?

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chasil 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Google has been particularly pernicious in the corporate exercise of zero-tolerance.

Because of their large footprint in so many areas, it is wise to greatly (re)consider expansion in the ways that you rely on them.

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driverdan 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hopefully this gets people to stop using Google for more than just LLMs.

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llm_nerd 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The devs are paying to use the UIs provided by the company. The usage-based API is a separate offering, and everyone knows that.

It's okay to be annoyed at being caught, but honestly the deer in the headlights bit is a bit ridiculous.

If you want to use an API, pay for the API option. Or run your own models.

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noosphr 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You are being subsidised to the tune of 50 to 99.9 cents on the dollar compared to the API.

What the hell do you expect? To get paid for using other people's tools on Google's servers?

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sowbug 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Businesses do not have an entitlement to profit. Suspending customers for using a fairly expensive subscription plan -- especially forfeiting an annual prepayment for a day or two of coloring outside the lines -- sure does make Google appear entitled to profit without ever risking its own pricing model.

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sigmar 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Suspending customers for using a fairly expensive subscription plan -- especially forfeiting an annual prepayment for a day or two of coloring outside the lines

they're being suspended for using a private api outside of the app for which the api was intended. If you make a clone of the hbo app, so that you can watch hbo shows without ads by logging in with your discounted ads-included membership, your account will also be suspended.

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sowbug 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The facts are straightforward, even without analogies. But since we're using them...

You are at the grocery store, checking out. The total comes to $250. You pay, but then remember you had a coupon. You present it to the cashier, who calls the manager over. The manager informed you that you've attempted to use an expired coupon, which is a violation of Paragraph 53 subsection d of their Terms of Service. They keep your groceries and your $250, and they ban you from the store.

Google is acting here like it was entitled to a profitable transaction, and is even entitled to punish anyone who tries to make it a losing transaction. But they're not the police. No crime was committed.

Regular businesses win some and lose some. A store buys widgets for $10 and hopes to sell them for $20, but sometimes they miscalculate and have to unload them for $5. Overall they hope their winners exceed their losers. That's business.

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sigmar 4 hours ago | parent [-]

my point wasn't an analogy. the facts are that it is a private api being used with a subscription service. neither hbo nor google are required to do business with people that abuse the api.

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sowbug 3 hours ago | parent [-]

We are in violent agreement about that point. Where we seem to disagree is that I don't think they're entitled to also keep the customer's annual subscription payment when they've decided they want out of the contract.

	▲	renewiltord 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think they could make a good case for a prorated refund in either small claims or as a class action.

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overfeed 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Equally, customers are not entitled to make set the terms, or pricing decisions for businesses. They can always move their custom elsewhere if they disagree with ToS or pricing.

	▲	sowbug 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Of course. That's why I personally don't use an ad blocker. I just close the tab if it's too annoying.