On April 8, Anthropic officially cut off the channels through which third-party frameworks, including OpenClaw, could access the Claude subscription service. This move not only shocked heavy users but also revealed the surprising computing cost behind the large model subscription model.

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Core Conflict: $200 Subscription Fee vs. $5,000 Computing Cost

Anthropic gave a straightforward explanation for this crackdown:

Cost Mismatch: The platform found that some heavy users paid only $200 per month for subscriptions via third-party frameworks, yet consumed computing resources worth $5,000.

Mandatory Switch: To ease the huge financial pressure, affected users must now switch to the API billing model, causing developers who relied on the subscription model's "free-riding" to suddenly stall.

Expert Opinion: Third-Party Frameworks Are "Black Holes" for Token Consumption

Regarding this incident, Luofuli, Head of Xiaomi MiMo Large Model made a sharp comment:

Low Efficiency Trap: She pointed out that third-party frameworks, due to inefficient context management, often consume Token in amounts that are ten times higher than native frameworks.

Inevitable Loss Control: Faced with such inefficient resource consumption, Anthropic's move is essentially a business loss control strategy and is not surprising at all.

Industry Warning: Don't Let the "Token Price War" Become a Vicious Cycle

Luofuli further issued a warning to large model manufacturers, urging the industry to return to rationality:

Reject Blind Price Reduction: Without clarifying the subscription pricing logic, blindly falling into a "Token price war" and allowing third-party tools to connect is equivalent to digging one's own grave.

What Is the Way Out: The real way out for the industry is not cheaper Tokens, but rather the "co-evolution of efficient frameworks and high-quality models".

Xiaomi Update: Pay-Per-Use Billing Is the Cure for the Ecosystem

While commenting on competitors' moves, Luofuli also revealed Xiaomi MiMo's latest strategy:

Token Plan Launch: The newly launched Token plan by Xiaomi MiMo clearly supports third-party integration, but uses a healthier pay-per-use model.

Long-Term Perspective: She believes that short-term cost pain will force third-party platforms to optimize their technology, thus promoting the AI ecosystem toward long-term healthy development.

Conclusion: The Cost Line in the Computing Era

As global computing resources gradually fail to keep up with the growth of intelligent agents (Agents), purely low-price strategies are no longer sustainable. From Anthropic