Seems unlikely they'd be this dumb. The way to get us to use more tokens is to make those tokens more useful, not less. Anthropic is full of people (including higher-ups) who know this.
> What stops any business from over-charging? Competition.
I fully agree.
> It's the same conflict of interest quite literally any business has.
I know that you know what I meant ;)
In the long term it is just as you say - overcharging (eventually corrected by competition forces), but in the short term it can be additional revenue, blamed on a bug, but making some manager look good.
It’s like that saying “What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away”, but in this case it is one company.
There is definitely a conflict of interest.