"Production" what?

The API is for using the model directly with your own tools. It can be in dev, or experiments, or anything.

Subscriptions are for using the apps Claude + code. That's what it always said when you sign up.

Production code, of course; deployed software. For when you need to make LLM calls.

Production = people who can afford to pay API rates for a coding harness

Saying their prices are too high is an understandable complaint; I'm only arguing against the complaint that people were stopped from hacking the subscriptions.

LLMs are a hyper-competitive market at the moment, and we have a wealth of options, so if Anthropic is overpricing their API they'll likely be hurting themselves.