The alternative is to price their product transparently. If there is too much demand and supply is limited: Charge more.

Anthropic wants to have their lunch (low apparent prices, increased market share) and eat it too (controlled costs, adequate production to serve the demand).

They're advertising themselves as a $5 All-You-Can-Eat buffet, but then aggressively and arbitrarily restricting admission, sneakily swapping out the high-quality ingredients for garbage-tier slop, and kicking out anyone who even utters the words "to go box" or "doggie bag".

Would you want to eat at that restaurant?

Then go eat at a different restaurant...

It sounds looks you're upset that something was obviously too good to be true.