Thread

1. amelius · 1790860691 · focus · HN ↗

   They should be investigating them because of massively selling below cost price.

   How is this a fair, level, playing field, U.S.? Making a large pile of money to put millions of people out of a job, it warrants some investigations!

   1. gtCameron · 1790860810 · focus · HN ↗

      Do you have any evidence of this assertion? What is 'cost price' and what is being sold below that?

      1. hedora · 1790861450 · focus · HN ↗

         Claude says my token spend is $15k per week. I’m being charged $50.

         They can only do that because of circular finance deals and other fraud. Those deals are also the reason a machine that’d run ~ Claude Opus 4.6 locally costs $5000 instead of the original $1400 MSRP.

         1. arctic-true · 1790864731 · focus · HN ↗

            For antitrust purposes below-cost pricing is not expressly illegal. It is only illegal if there is a “dangerous probability” that the firm in question will be able to recoup its losses after eliminating its competitors by taking away all their demand and then jacking up prices when they’re the only game in town. In the case of your Claude tokens, even if they’re being sold below cost, they’re being sold for more than anyone else is selling tokens. So it’s hard to argue that they’re going to drive everyone else out of the market with their pricing.

            1. lelanthran · 1790883261 · focus · HN ↗

               > It is only illegal if there is a “dangerous probability” that the firm in question will be able to recoup its losses after eliminating its competitors by taking away all their demand and then jacking up prices when they’re the only game in town.

               Aren't the competitors in this instance the workers?

               1. deepwoods · 1790914838 · focus · HN ↗

                  Not really, no. Anthropic sells tokens, not services. It's up to the user to turn those tokens into something useful.

                  There are also non-price reasons to switch from human labor to agentic labor. No sick days, no recruiting costs, no moral foibles, etc. It's like arguing that Ford competes with Uber - both are ultimately selling you a way to get from A to B, but they are doing it in radically different ways.

                  1. lelanthran · 1790946209 · focus · HN ↗

                     >> Aren't the competitors in this instance the workers?

                     > Not really, no. Anthropic sells tokens, not services. It's up to the user to turn those tokens into something useful.

                     > There are also non-price reasons to switch from human labor to agentic labor. No sick days, no recruiting costs, no moral foibles, etc.

                     I have to know, how can you call them "agentic labour" and still claim that it is not competing with human labour?

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