“It’s also clear, at this point, that Anthropic and OpenAI have both offered subscriptions that were impossible to provide at scale at the price and availability that they were leading up to 2026, and that they did so with the intention of growing their revenue to acquire more customers, equity investment and attention.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
It is clear that Anthropic and OpenAI both offered subscriptions that were impossible to provide at scale at the price and availability they had leading up to 2026, and did so intending to grow revenue to acquire more customers, equity investment and attention.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, I Will Never Respect A Website, paragraph 154.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment wyea-i-will-never-respect-a-website-7d0bad-a2
We recorded 36 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2026-04-14. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
Conditions
- leading up to 2026 (scope, stated by the speaker)
From the speaker
- Anthropic and OpenAI have both offered subscriptions
- impossible to provide at scale
- at the price and availability
- leading up to 2026
- with the intention of growing their revenue
- to acquire more customers, equity investment and attention
Our interpretation
- The claim concerns subscription offers made before 2026. Its starting date is unspecified, so the target period has an open start and ends on December 31, 2025.
- In context, impossible to provide at scale means unable to sustain delivery economically at substantially the advertised prices and availability as the subscriber base grows.
- The assertion applies to both companies and includes a separate claim about their purposes in offering those terms.
- Evidence of tighter limits or losses supports concern about the terms but does not alone establish impossibility.
- The wording alleges a growth purpose; it does not explicitly require proof that executives knew the offers were impossible when launched.
- Leading up to 2026 is a time description, not a conditional antecedent.
Counts as supported if: For each company, evidence establishes the relevant pre-2026 offer, shows that its price and availability could not be sustained at scale, and connects the decision to offer those terms to the stated revenue, customer, investment, and attention objectives.
Counts as contradicted if: Reliable evidence shows that at least one company's relevant offers were economically deliverable at scale on substantially the same terms, or establishes that a material part of the attributed purpose is false.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
In a post dated January 6, 2025, Altman reported losses on OpenAI Pro subscriptions and higher usage than expected [e1]. On July 28, 2025, Anthropic described a few outlying Claude Code users as costly to support [e2]. Reporting published July 29 described weekly limits scheduled for August 28 and Anthropic's estimate that fewer than 5% of subscribers would be affected [e3]. These disclosures do not establish that either company's pre-2026 subscription terms were economically impossible to sustain at scale [e1–e3]. Altman also said he had expected the price to make money; that statement does not establish or refute the full alleged growth purpose for both companies [e4]. The claim remains unresolved [e1–e4].
Limitations
- The reported Pro losses lack a defined accounting basis or matched subscriber revenue and cost data [e1].
- Costly outliers and projected effects of limits do not establish the economics of Anthropic's overall subscriber base [e2, e3].
- The cited disclosures do not provide contemporaneous decision records establishing the full alleged purpose for both companies [e1–e4].
Evidence (4 items)
Context only: Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, on X,
we are currently losing money on openai pro subscriptions!
Why it matters here: This establishes a reported loss on Pro at that time. It supplies neither a defined accounting measure nor evidence that the offer could never be sustained as costs and usage evolved.
- Publisher
- Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, on X
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Measures
- OpenAI, Reported loss on ChatGPT Pro subscriptions; cost allocation unspecified, company reported, ? to 2025-01-06
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Anthropic on X,
But a few outlying cases are very costly to support.
Why it matters here: Anthropic acknowledges a cost problem for unusually intensive usage. It does not disclose average subscriber costs or establish that the whole subscription offering was impossible to sustain.
- Publisher
- Anthropic on X
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Measures
- Anthropic, Costliness of outlying Claude Code subscription usage, company reported, ? to 2025-07-28
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Tom’s Guide,
weekly rate limits
Why it matters here: The article reports an announcement of limits scheduled for August 28, despite its opening's past-tense wording. It also reports Anthropic's estimate that fewer than 5% of subscribers would be affected, qualifying any inference about all subscribers.
- Publisher
- Tom’s Guide
- Kind of source
- News report
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, on X,
thought we would make some money
Why it matters here: Altman says he expected the price to make money, providing an alternative to deliberate loss-leading. This self-report does not exclude simultaneous growth objectives or settle the intentions of both companies.
- Where
- Entire reply
- Publisher
- Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, on X
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
Dated pre-2026 subscription terms, usage, capacity requirements, and matched revenue and service costs for each company would establish whether those terms were sustainable at scale. Contemporaneous decision records would establish or refute the alleged revenue, customer, investment, and attention objectives.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, I Will Never Respect A Website
It’s also clear, at this point, that Anthropic and OpenAI have both offered subscriptions that were impossible to provide at scale at the price and availability that they were leading up to 2026, and that they did so with the intention of growing their revenue to acquire more customers, equity investment and attention.
- Where
- paragraph 154
- Published
- 2026-04-14
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-i-will-never-respect-a-website-7d0bad-a2: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment wyea-i-will-never-respect-a-website-7d0bad-a2.