[tristanj]

You skipped the part where Ford buys the cars at 90% off and sells them at 80% off, at a profit. Then gets paid by competitors for the driving data.

At the same time, Volvo is running the exact same hustle, except they buy the cars with stolen credit cards, so they get the cars for free.

[anon373839]

You skipped the part where Hyundai chose to sell the cars at loss in the hopes of eventually gaining a monopoly position.

[tristanj]

Misleading on both counts:

1) Anthropic tokens via subscription aren't sold at a loss, they're sold at cost.

2) Subscription plans are not sold in hopes of eventually gaining a monopoly position. They act as a loss leader designed to get a foot-in-the-door and funnel companies into costly enterprise plans, where Anthropic can charge full API rates.

[newswasboring]

Why should other people be responsible to make their business model work? They hold like all the money, if they can't make it work please shut down. Companies like OpenAI have already broken the public trust by breaking their non profit promises. They don't deserve any politeness at this point.

[girvo]

Don’t sell your cars at a loss then.

[newswasboring]

Where are you getting this stolen credit card thing? That's so random.

[tristanj]

Someone was claiming that it's not an issue for these proxy networks to create thousands of bot accounts and resell Claude's output because "they are buying the product" and "They pay for it!", which is a nonsensical position.

I responded that these resellers don't always acquire these accounts legitimately. They often use stolen credit cards, educational discounts, or resold compute credits to acquire them at essentially zero cost. They're not always paying customers.

That's one reason token resellers are able to price so cheaply, they acquire the goods for free.

Anthropic and OpenAI eat the loss.

[newswasboring]

> They often use stolen credit cards, educational discounts, or resold compute credits to acquire them at essentially zero cost. They're not always paying customers.

Yeah but where are you getting this from? I've seen this claim many places but only as pure speculation. No proof, just bold faced assertions.

[tristanj]

https://www.chinatalk.media/p/how-to-buy-cheap-claude-tokens... https://x.com/yan5xu/status/2029743983522631698 https://x.com/howie_serious/status/2031620123413590471 https://x.com/Vincent_AINotes/status/2046434813125763527

[newswasboring]

The china talk page points to an article about crypto currency stolen credit cards. If I believed every random X account i would have to believe too many false things. Not really convinced my guy.

[tristanj]

The companies running these proxy stations are already:

1) Using botnets to mass-create thousands of accounts

2) Blatantly violating ToS by splitting and reselling accounts

3) Creating thousands of accounts using fraudulent identities

4) Bypassing KYC by recruiting real people in low-income countries for biometric face-matching checks for a few dollars

5) Using AI deepfakes to fake passports / verification credentials

But if you believe that payments fraud is the one ethical line these syndicates refuse to cross, there's not much else I can say to convince you.