“Not only must Anthropic and OpenAI find a way to make their unsustainable and unprofitable services burn less money, but they must also constantly dance with metering out whatever capacity they have to their customers, because the more extra capacity they buy, the more money they lose.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
Anthropic's and OpenAI's services are unsustainable and unprofitable, and buying more capacity makes them lose more money.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, I Will Never Respect A Website, paragraph 151.
- 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-fe768d-a1
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
- Causal claim
- 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)
From the speaker
- Anthropic and OpenAI
- unsustainable and unprofitable services
- burn less money
- the more extra capacity they buy, the more money they lose
Our interpretation
- The claim combines current losses with a causal claim that purchasing additional capacity increases those losses after associated revenue is counted.
- For the current financial state, use calendar 2025, the latest completed annual period with financial estimates available before the post. The speaker supplies no reporting period.
- Unsustainable is read as an assertion about service economics, not merely the existence of present losses.
- The sentence does not identify an accounting basis or distinguish cash burn, operating losses, net losses, and service-level margins. No one measure is silently substituted for another.
- The two companies must be assessed separately within the joint claim; one company's figures cannot establish the other's economics.
Counts as supported if: Comparable accounts for each company's services show losses, and evidence linking incremental capacity costs with resulting revenue establishes that buying more capacity increases those losses.
Counts as contradicted if: Comparable service accounts establish profitability or show that additional purchased capacity generates a positive incremental contribution rather than increasing losses.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Does the evidence support the cause?
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
The records document losses and expensive compute, but they measure different things: consolidated net losses, estimated EBITDA losses, and adjusted gross margins. Positive reported gross margins also caution against assuming every additional unit of service increases losses. None of these establishes the full causal claim for both companies. The speaker's unstated accounting basis independently prevents a supported or contradicted financial score.
Limitations
- The contract's accounting basis is unknown.
- Some financial evidence is press-derived or projected.
- Company-wide figures cannot substitute for service-level marginal economics.
Evidence (4 items)
Context only: Anthropic, PBC / U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,
We have a history of net losses
Why it matters here: The filing documents historical company-wide net losses and audited 2025 GAAP accounts. Those losses cannot establish service-level marginal economics, and the claim does not specify GAAP net income.
- Publisher
- Anthropic, PBC / U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
- Kind of source
- Regulatory filing, audited
- Measures
- Anthropic, Consolidated net loss, USD billions, gaap, 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: The Decoder, citing The Information,
OpenAI's adjusted gross margin dropped to 33 percent in 2025
Why it matters here: The reported positive adjusted gross margin cautions against equating company losses with losses on every unit of service. It neither establishes net profitability nor measures the contribution of an additional capacity purchase.
- Publisher
- The Decoder, citing The Information
- Kind of source
- News report
- Measures
- OpenAI, Adjusted gross margin percent, estimate, 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Epoch AI,
Anthropic’s “optimistic” projections were for $5.2 billion in EBITDA losses
Why it matters here: Epoch identifies these as near-year-end projections based on press reporting, with an EBITDA loss measure. They support concern about losses but do not match an unspecified service-profitability measure or establish causation.
- Publisher
- Epoch AI
- Kind of source
- Secondary summary
- Measures
- Anthropic, Projected EBITDA loss, USD billions, estimate, 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Epoch AI,
It also reports a gross margin of 40%
Why it matters here: The reported positive gross margin is material context against treating all service provision as inherently loss-making. Average gross margin does not establish incremental profitability or overall sustainability.
- Publisher
- Epoch AI
- Kind of source
- Secondary summary
- Measures
- Anthropic, Reported gross margin estimate percent, estimate, 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
A specified loss measure and comparable accounts for both companies linking additional purchased capacity to its incremental costs and resulting revenue, with training and other expenses separated.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, I Will Never Respect A Website
Not only must Anthropic and OpenAI find a way to make their unsustainable and unprofitable services burn less money, but they must also constantly dance with metering out whatever capacity they have to their customers, because the more extra capacity they buy, the more money they lose.
- Where
- paragraph 151
- Published
- 2026-04-14
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-i-will-never-respect-a-website-fe768d-a1: 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-fe768d-a1.