> We understood (and knew for a long time) that the large AI labs are not monetarily profiting from subscription users that make heavy use of their subscription.

I dont think this is "understood" or "known" to anyone except Ed Zitron. Subscription plans like Claude Code also have rolling usage limits, it could be profitable. Inference is very cheap and unless you're using OpenClaw no one is actually maxing out the usage window at all times. I'm sure in aggregate the subs are not money furnaces.

Then explain why they started banning all third party harnesses, including those that work through Claude Code, if it still makes them money. They are cutting off profit for no good reason?

I think there were reasons to doubt that heavy subscription users are unprofitable before they did that. OpenClaw was just the tip of the iceberg.

Why don't they make token pricing dynamic if that was the case? It should then allow heavy user to get even more for their money than with the current subscription model where they can't adjust to current infra availability.

It may be that "in aggregate" sub users are (not yet) a loosing business. But in all fairness, the more useful AI gets, the more it will be used. And the more it will be used, the harder it will be to make subs cheaper than token pricing. The only counter-weight are new light users, but those will also become heavy users over time, the more useful it will be for them. And at some point it will be hard to onboard light users in the first place, because the laggards will require even more intelligence and value to get them over.