[infecto]

It is not a premium service, it simply is buying you more tokens. Those $200 gives you at least $400 in API cost tokens.

Don't confused price with "premium service". It was not that long ago that folks would be spending $100-200 on their cable service bundle. You are buying a subsidized product when using the plan and the more you spend the more tokens you get, has nothing to do with being a premium service.

[everforward]

This is a messaging issue on their part, which I think is partially intentional.

It’s not unreasonable for people to expect the most expensive subscription plan to be “premium”. That’s how it works everywhere else. They typically have better margins on the premium plans, and the monthly payment gives them reliable cash flow at that higher margin.

You’re right that that’s not true at Anthropic (or really most AI providers). You’re not even really buying tokens because you get billed whether you use it or not, the tokens don’t carry over like buying API tokens, and they get to dictate what an acceptable way to use those tokens is. They are cheaper though, assuming you actually use them. Which Anthropic et al would really prefer you didn’t.

[Dylan16807]

> It is not a premium service, it simply is buying you more tokens.

The cheap plans are usually semi-unlimited the same way but not as powerful. This isn't simply a matter of buying more tokens.

> It was not that long ago that folks would be spending $100-200 on their cable service bundle.

Compared to OTA that's premium, but more relevantly if most cable buyers are getting a hypothetical $10 bundle then the $100 one is a premium bundle.

[infecto]

Sorry still not sure what you’re going on about . The majority of LLM plans are simply a token purchase. The $200 account buys you nothing but tokens. It’s not a premium service, it’s simply more tokens. This is true for most of the companies out there.

The original comment was they are paying for a premium service. No they are paying for more tokens. You lot going on and on arguing over some small hill.

[Dylan16807]

The lower tier openai and google plans don't have access to the same models. Where are you seeing popular plans that are simply token purchases?

[infecto]

I guess if you want to go that deep sure they sometimes offer early access, access to new agents/models but ultimately it’s a function of tokens. The selling point for most/all providers is x times the usage. You are upgrading for the token access.

Claude was the topic at hand and higher tiers buy you more tokens. I know some like Gemini bundle a ton of junk alongside the tokens but you really are still buying yourself more tokens. There is nothing premium in a $200 Claude account. You are buying more tokens, $100 is the same as $200 except token count. Hope that helps. ;)

[Dylan16807]

> $100 is the same as $200 except token count

But I was making an argument about the $10 plans, not the $100 plans.

Claude doesn't even go that low. Except the free plan which has a very reduced feature list.

Claude's $20 and $100 are pretty similar except tokens, that part is true. So they're a bit higher priced and more of the "it's just tokens" model. But the market as a whole is mostly selling a limited feature set down at lower price points. On average, getting up to the point where you have full access and are paying per-token is itself a premium jump.

[infecto]

You are standing on top of an ant hill and I still don’t fully understand your position. The original post was about the premium service Anthropic plans. There is no such thing, you are simply paying for more tokens. Hope that helps.