> This argument has been decapitated countless times already on HN.
No it hasn't, because the argument is completely correct, and the people mad about it are mad they can't have unlimited usage instead of paying the token API prices.
> This move is anti-competitive and Anthropic knows it.
No it isn't, that's not what "anti-competitive" means, and no court in the world would label it as such. You can't go flailing around looking for legal jargon to attach to behavior just because you don't like it.
API is intended for massive scaled operations (companies) and has no hard usage limits, a subscription is intended only for individual usage (solo dev) and has therefore hard usage limits. Is it that difficult to grasp the difference between API and subscription models?