I kind of expect them to go right to Astra 6.2, 6.1 was cancelled over the cybersecurity hubbub. I eagerly await either one.

They're doing its because they recently cut plan usage by about 50%, leaving Anthropic providing about 5x the value on their plans. [0]

The "cost per task" metric is just a weaselly way to sound like they didn't just double the cost for most users, and aren't having their proverbial lunch money stolen. They can no longer claim to provide more tokens, more capable models, or more usage in general. So they made up a new metric where "task" could be defined to mean whatever they need it to mean.

They had to become VERY specific in their wording to present any kind of value proposition that will entice people.

[0] https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/anthropic-subscription...