The issue with this kind of subsidy is that it is designed to lock you in and not as a loss leader.

In other words, it is not like giving free nuts at bar to make you drink more beer but more like Nestle giving baby formula so that the babies get use to that instead of mothers milk

I think the subscription is also designed as a loss leader. The ai labs know the real money is in enterprise, and that enterprises mostly don’t want to use the most expensive option. How do they convince enterprises to sign up for their expensive api then? Give it to the employees for cheap so they tell bosses they want Claude code at work.