Opus was released in Feb 2026. Even though it feels like a long 2 months has passed, its' not really clear that they were developing this as a competitor to that product.

There's nothing really strange about not competing directly with the best, but rather showing whom you are as good as.

I don’t know why anyone would do the mental backflips to defend this.

They posted charts with logos for Claude and others. You had to read the fine details to realize they weren’t comparing to the latest offerings from those companies. They were counting on you not noticing.

There’s zero reason to compare to old models unless you’re trying to mislead.