> And not just in this instance, nerfing has been complained about in a cyclical fashion for many months.

No, it gets complained about constantly even if there is no model coming out. A completely unrelated thread on Claude will feature comments like "can I just say that [model] has suddenly become useless this week?" Merely asking that question is bound to get people agreeing with you because we are evaluating all of this on vibes and placebos.

I too feel that way sometimes, I don't think it's ridiculous that Anthropic might silently downgrade you as demand warrants. But asking others if they "feel" something I feel is less than useless.