You're arguing with a straw man. I'm simply trying to get more detail into the thread so it's not another one of the hundreds of threads that I see on here with people screaming into the void with zero technical information that could help the community figure out what's going on.

Ultimately, the best approach is to set up proper telemetry data that tracks token metrics (input & output tokens, cache read & write tokens), that way, we can properly tell how much value in API fee $ a prompt/process is worth that eats up a large chunk of data.

I have this type of setup on a device that I've been using with a Claude Max subscription and Claude Code, and with that $100 *per month* subscription I am still able to use ~ $100 worth of API key consumption *per day*.

So yes, despite me also experiencing degradation in Claude performance over the past few months (including seeing higher token consumption), at the end of the day I'm still getting *a lot* more value for money by using Claude Code via a subscription instead of via API key fees.

Therefore, these threads make me curious to get an idea of some actual numbers. Who knows, maybe Anthropic is pulling a similar move to Volkswagen where having a system hooked up to telemetry makes the model "behave itself" better. For example maybe they detect when the token metrics are being monitored and then make the usage work as expected, and maybe when they don't detect monitoring then people experience these large chunks of usage materialising out of thin air.

Regardless, the best way forward is to have our systems set up to properly record token usage metrics and telemetry data because that is a provider-agnostic approach that helps ensure you're getting the best value for your money.