Anthropic cannot sustain additional slow request traffic on Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Please enable usage-based pricing

Generally speaking, this has to do with Cursor’s business model.

They buy tokens in bulk and then aggressively manage their own context in order to avoid high-token conversation arrangements in Claude. Think of it as being something like

  • Send the last 7-13 conversation segments
  • Send an internal cursorsmall summary document, likely xml or md, to hold the illusion of long context together
  • Send a summary of the code the user is working on along with specific samples; likely occurs in an agentic context

This allows Cursor to be highly effective while also rationing tokens and making the profit required to stay in business without charging everyone 3-5x the cost they expect to pay.

Slow requests are, in essence, what they allocate in terms of free tokens as a loss leader to get people to keep using the tool between purchases. They’re a necessary evil that cost Cursor money but without them people would exit for other “free” tools with basic AI tiers. In other words, if you give people just enough to want more they’ll buy back into the fast lane and your company makes a profit.

What you’re seeing is the popularity of Cursor: there aren’t enough slow tokens at peak hours to satisfy all of the free or low-cost subs combined with the folks who are trying to white-knuckle the last few days of their expired sub without paying another $20.

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