It’s because their models burn tokens like crazy. API use is way too expensive

Edit: or should I say, the subscription is artificially cheap

Well, they are paying. Just not for the product Anthropic wants to sell. Really at root this is a marketing failure. They really, really want to push Claude CLI as a loss leader, and are having to engage in this disaster of a anti-PR campaign to plug all the leaks from people sneaking around.

The root cause is and remains their pricing: the delta between their token billing and their flat fee is just screaming to be exploited by a gray market.