It’s probably a mixture of things including direct control over how the api is called and used as pointed out above and giving a discount for using their ecosystem. They are in fact a business so it should not surprise anyone they act as one.

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esperent 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It might well be a mixture, but 95% of that mixture is vendor lock in. Same reason they don't support AGENTS.md, they want to add friction in switching.

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mgambati 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They can try add as much as friction they want. A simple rename in the files and directories like .claude makes the thing work to move out of CC.

It’s not like moving from android to iOS.

	▲	esperent 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You'd be surprised how effective small bits of friction are.

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xvector 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If it was lock in they wouldn't make it absolutely trivial to change inference providers in Claude Code.