Both companies offer "MAX" or "PRO" plans - and the best models were available to those customers. This new wave of "It's too dangerous for the public" is a new initiative from both companies.
I agree with your overall sentiment. Paying for "Claude Mini" doesn't get you "Claude Maximos".
However, the overall precedent that the companies have set is that if you pay for the top tier subscription, you get the top tier model. That's not true any more.
This is so similar to people arguing for plan tokens to be used with third party tools. It does not jive with my understanding of the world. Do people really expect that paying for a top plan actually gets you guaranteed access to everything? It’s great when it works but at the end of the day why build that false expectation.
Just like when you buy a top of the line camera or car, and then they release a new one, you are entitled to the now-top-of-the-line camera or car.
What the heck come on.
Buying a camera or car is different from paying a subscription, right? Different expectations
No, I have never bought a subscription and then expected it to get arbitrarily upgraded any time a higher tier was introduced.
But that's the exact standard that was set by the LLM providers, right? My ChatGPT 3.5 sub became a 4o sub, which became a 5.1 sub and so on