Classic VC pump playbook - run it uneconomically until everyone is addicted, then 5x prices once you have enough critical mass. See 2010s "Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy"..
It seems pretty transparent that they are heavily resource constrained, (training run for Claude 5.x, higher usage / growth than anticipated). I don’t disagree that their long play is monopolistic pricing, but what we’re observing seems better explained by the fact they have a very tight compute budget they are trying to optimize over to put as much as they can into next gen experiments / training to make sure they stay competitive over the next 6-months / year.
