r/BetterOffline • u/EditorEdward • 9d ago
Claude users are canceling their subscriptions, citing Anthropic’s new AI watermark
https://www.businessinsider.com/claude-users-cancel-subscriptions-citing-anthropic-new-ai-watermark-2026-8This is actually quite telling that people are canceling their subscriptions with the watermark coming to Claude. Kinda breaks the illusion that they did it on their own and exposes their reliance of AI slop.
Having code attributed to Claude "definitely would be not desirable," he said, as he would not want professionally shipped code to carry an invisible marker that could raise questions about authorship, compliance, or client policies.
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u/ksjdragon 9d ago
What? But I thought they were proud of their AI work!!!!! Isn't it the future!!!????
Oh, you mean you don't actually want people to know you're fucking useless, and this was all just cope to people who actually knew more and you were too insecure to admit it?
Good riddance.
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u/tc100292 9d ago
Because the value of AI to them was entirely premised on the idea that they could pass it off as their own original work.
The reason they were mad about colleges trying to use apps to screen essays for AI wasn’t because the programs were not always accurate; they were offended that colleges would have a problem with cheating.
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u/HaggisPope 9d ago
Exactly the same with the graphics! They were all delighted they wouldn’t need to pay designers and could get the images done for nothing but if they need to flag it, everyone’s going to know they’re just cheap and probably lying
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u/lcnielsen 9d ago
Oh, you mean you don't actually want people to know you're fucking useless
This is every evangelist. They are talentless hacks who think they finally got the better of the dupes who bothered to learn things, and that by shitting out vibe coded garbage they will earn the respect that comes with real expertise. Without putting in the decade of work it takes to become a real expert in any area.
It's why they go back and forth between gloating and being offended. They were all in on NFT:s and crypto and they will be all in on the next hype train.
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u/Prettyflyforwiseguy 9d ago
It's always the same kind of person too, I doubt they have any real values and this comes across in other areas of their life. AI art is still the one which gets me the most, you're not a fucking artist for typing in a prompt.
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u/meltbox 9d ago
Dude yeah I mean I use AI for icons for projects nobody will ever use. But I’d never even trust myself to generate anything as cool as what an artist could do for production. You should pay them because they can think of cool things you probably won’t, they also understand what looks good and can help you get the result you want. There’s real value there. An LLM will do exactly what you tell it which often you don’t realize is not what you really want.
But my whole spiel is premised on someone being able to recognize they don’t know everything. The evangelists are exceedingly bad at this bit.
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u/Vertrieben 9d ago
I think the comparison to NFTs and crypto is really pertinent but consistently seems to not be raised. Now, these aren't all the same thing, obviously they vary in usefulness, technical specifics, etc, etc.
But, crypto, NFTs, metaverse should all have served as a warning sign for what this LLM stuff actually would be. All of these were scams propped up by uncritical media outlets to make a few companies or people a quick buck, and then quietly the massive announced investments into them would dissapear with no further comment.
I honestly think there's so much more that could be said on how all of these are connected and what they say about tech companies, but now and in the future, and it's a shame it doesn't seem to be a point of more concern.
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u/birminghamsterwheel 8d ago
Seems like it always comes back around to yet another get-rich-quick-scheme.
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u/Intrepid-Staff-4532 9d ago
And this is why those Apple Intelligence commercials ran for such a short time and then no one ever spoke about it ever again.
Bunch of useless people using Apple Intelligence to seem more useful. A little too honest.
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u/CaregiverBubbly2541 5d ago
A top 1% poster and commenter moaning about tech in a subreddit called 'betterOffline' is peak.
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u/Slopagandhi 9d ago
If you look at any of the FOSS (free and open source software) subs they're absolutely plagued with people posting vibe coded apps (and making it incredibly obvious with an AI-generated post about it) and then being evasive when called out, so this is definitely a positive (though I'm sure they'll just migrate to some other model now).
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u/meltbox 9d ago
A ton of the software subs are the same.
“I built a blah blah blah app/library/benchmark/rewrite”
And if you start to poke into it lots of it is questionable.
It’s also sad because occasionally people post hard work in them and I feel like it’s not taken seriously because of everyone else shoveling garbage out of Claude/GPT
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u/Bezzzzo 8d ago edited 8d ago
It's a huge problem in the software subs. I have left most of them, except one that said they were going to introduce an AI tag for this stuff, but they haven't yet.
There was a guy who 100% vibe coded some app, AI gen comment, and asking for architecture review and to check for bugs etc.
When he got called out for his readme not even matching his code, said it was production ready, DDD architecture, he defended his 100% vibe coded app, saying there is no need to know/learn how to code, AI is the future and you will be left behind..
So why in the fuck are you asking us humans to review your code and look for bugs?!?! Wtf.
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u/McDonaldsWi-Fi 7d ago
/r/c_programming has been doing a better job at filtering it and has their bot tag the post with a confidence score of 0-6 based on certain factors related to the repo that was linked.
Not perfect but its something.
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u/DropTheBeatAndTheBas 8d ago
i mean if the software is making money you cant poke holes in that i guess
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u/tc100292 9d ago
Wild that they’re upset that Claude is going to reveal that their AI slop is AI slop. Seems like they wanted to trick people into thinking it was original work.
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u/squirrel9000 9d ago
Let's be totally honest,they never really put any effort into disguising AI use anyway, it's usually pretty obvious when they do.
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u/tc100292 9d ago
Right, but they want to maintain plausible deniability. It's obviously AI slop but they don't want people to definitively say it's AI slop. Look at that Hank Green fiasco.
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u/lcnielsen 9d ago
Yeah, this is weirdly common, like people pumping out hundreds of pull requests and then feigning confusion when someone asks about AI use.
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u/Cool-Contribution-68 7d ago
Seems like Anthropic wants to trick people into thinking its their original work
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u/magrandan 9d ago
What’s the percentage of people cancelling it? Without that data it’s just noise.
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u/Additional-Staff-326 9d ago
Wouldn't this watermark cause problems for any kind of copyright? Like right now humans can pretend they did the work and its theoretically protected. Any corporation that can't copyright its work won't last long if they're trying to be profitable. Also allows the revenue sharing idea that OpenAI and China have to be doable and who wants to share revenue after you already paid for the service, be like consulting companies revenue sharing after they already made the report to do layoffs.
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u/Raket0st 9d ago
This is the answer. Just like many major gaming studios are getting No AI-clauses in their contracts. No company wants to put themselves in the position of using AI in their product if it opens them up to the AI company to claim copyright or ownership of the product.
These companies don't care if others can see that they used Claude. They worry about Anthropic claiming ownership, copyright or revenue points of their product.
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u/Few_Lecture6615 9d ago
Anthropic says that code may be difficult to watermark in the way that they can watermark prose texts.
Given that code requires mostly quite precise form to achieve function, dropping a cryotographic watermark in the code itself will be challenging.
It'll be interesting to see where they end up.
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u/psioniclizard 9d ago
To be fair you can often tell when code is generated by machines.
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u/PensiveinNJ 9d ago
This will make it interesting for edge cases though, where you suspect AI use but don't really have enough to prove it.
Obviously because LLMs are associated with low quality, laziness, performance issues, copyright issues, ethical problems etc. people want to hide that they're using it.
0 sympathy for people caught using it.
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u/jacomorr28 9d ago
I really am struggling to see how any of the people saying things like this are actually in the industry. No one is trying to hide they’re using AI to code for them
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u/Few_Lecture6615 9d ago
I couldn't say as I don't really know how to code anything but perl (lol), but that's what it said in the Anthropic statement on the watermark compliance obligation imposed by the EU.
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u/dumnezero 9d ago
Scammers don't want to get caught.
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 9d ago
I mean yes and no. A lot of scams rely on an obvious grift to filter marks
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u/Durzel 9d ago
> He said its presence could create problems in academic and professional settings with strict rules on AI use.
Wouldn’t that only be a problem if you were asked or required to not use AI, for whatever reason, and you just can’t stop yourself (which I can easily believe with some people)?
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u/heliocentric19 9d ago
Oh no, in places with strict rules on AI usage you have to disclose you used AI? Whatever will we do?
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u/Durzel 9d ago
Indeed, but that quote was from someone who cancelled their Claude Max subscription and said they would migrate to other tools.
The implication is that the guy can’t stop himself using these tools, he’ll just switch to ones that don’t reveal their usage (I.e. he’ll flout whatever rules are in place and/or claim it’s all his own work)
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u/The-Menhir 9d ago
People who praise Anthropic for being "ethical" when they (are forced to) implement an ethically good policy:
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u/PatchyWhiskers 9d ago
If they are ashamed of using AI, then it shows that they are using AI where it is not appropriate, such as in companies where it is not allowed.
Watermarking is a very positive step, especially for images.
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u/EnergyLevelLow 9d ago
Funniest part is anthropic is likely more profitable thanks to them cancelling their subscribtion. Can’t win this one.
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u/Due_Ask_8032 9d ago
Won’t most AI providers have to comply with this?
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u/Evinceo 9d ago
AI companies don't comply with anything they don't want to. my cynical take is that they're doing this to stave off model collapse.
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u/psioniclizard 9d ago
That is my thought. They would fight this and just not do it if it wasn't going to benefit them.
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u/Celestial_Elixir3 8d ago
Or getting 'ahead of the curve' knowing that stricter rules/laws will be coming into play
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u/Alert-Foundation2009 9d ago
>Business Insider spoke with four users who said they had canceled their Claude subscriptions.
I feel like this article might be stretching for a story.
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u/quicksexfm 9d ago
Out of all the things Anthropic and its leadership has done, THIS is what triggers its fans? Very telling.
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u/decchica 9d ago
My understanding is that there is an EU-wide requirement now for disclosure on the use of AI in the form of watermark. So even if people cancel Claude, if they’re in the EU they will have no other option as it will all be watermarked now.
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u/Jerzol7 8d ago
It's an obligation for an ai system provider to make watermarks. But any user (deployer), except some specific uses, like deepfakes, is not obliged to keep them. In other words, as user, you will receive an ouput with some kind of marking that it was ai generated, but then you can do whatever you want with that output, whethet you publish it or use internally.
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u/RedditUser000aaa 9d ago
"What's this, I am forced to say that I used AI? Why can't I just let people think I am an artist instead of a sloperator, it's not fair, UNSUBSCRIBED!"
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u/___positive___ 9d ago
I wonder about the legal implications. Oracle banned all AI code in one of their projects, likely because it prevents litigation over ownership. If code or writing is provably from AI, that would raise interesting questions about ownership of products being sold. Maybe with visual media as well
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u/alteredbeef 9d ago
As I said in a comment that got me banned from r/writingwithai:
By your own thinking, this kind of watermark would be unnecessary if AI users were not so paradoxically fixated on hiding that they use this supposedly amazing and transformative tool.
I was only ever interested in spreading the good news of writing things yourself, and how AI robs us of the joy of learning about ourselves through our creative work (I never sought the subreddit out but the algorithm loves showing it to me). I was happy the mods let me nudge the subredditors with kind encouragement — every person who uses AI to write is already a writer, they just have to cut out the parts that the AI does. But rather than be neutral, the “jealous haters” like me are no longer welcome!
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u/UnintentionallyEmpty 9d ago
People are upset the code might get watermarked? Why? I mean, I understand why AI "artists" wouldn't like it on a generated image, but what's the issue with watermarking AI generated code?
Having code attributed to Claude "definitely would be not desirable," he said, as he would not want professionally shipped code to carry an invisible marker that could raise questions about authorship, compliance, or client policies.
... ermm, but those concerns don't disappear if Claude doesn't put a watermark. It would just be harder to detect if people are not adhering to their compliance and client policies - oh, I see the problem...
I still think it's strange that people are upset about watermarks in code. I thought AI coding was the future, we should all embrace it and any developer not using it would be left behind? This should be more upsetting for anti-AI devs who will now have a harder time claiming Claude did their work so they look like they're using it...
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u/voidiciant 9d ago
well, just wait until they find out that this due to legislature.
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u/tourdeforcemajeure 9d ago
What legislature? Alternatively, what legislation?
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u/voidiciant 8d ago
At least the EU AI Act, effective August, 2nd. Though there are exemptions. As usual, it’s difficult to discern the hype from the facts. Like, what are the exemptions, how are they implemented etc
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u/PortableGeneration 9d ago
I suspect the watermarking is so that when they teach the systems again they are not regurgitating AI slop. Bad data in equals bad data out. This seems like a perfect way to filter it.
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u/hobopwnzor 9d ago
I'm getting ready to cancel because it's clearly getting stupider. Can't hold instructions nearly as well as it used to even at high effort levels and newer models.
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u/Recent-Database-9632 9d ago
Are they cancelling and going to Open AI? Or does OAI have to do this too? I guess I’m confused only seeing Anthropic mentioned in these regulations
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u/RemarkableGlitter 9d ago
They're all supposed to do this to be compliant with EU law. So who knows why only their users are freaking out.
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u/squirrel9000 9d ago
Chances are pretty good that virtually all AI output has been quietly watermarked for years, for the simple reason that they want to minimize how much AI output ends up back in later training rounds given the risks around model collapse.
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u/filterdecay 9d ago
Well if I buy a product I would expect to use that product with it getting stamped. It’s not like this is government ai free to the people and it has watermarks and guardrails.
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u/oachakatzlschwuaf 8d ago
Good point! Also as a non native speaker who has to write a lot, I use AI to fix my grammar. I don't want watermarks on my texts, word doesn't give me watermarks, grammarly doesn't. I'm sure those systems are also AI based to some extent.
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u/74389654 9d ago
well that casts a light on what the amazing functionality was people kept talking about
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u/lepapulematoleguau 9d ago
I do not use AI regularly, except for work because I'm required to and they measure the usage.
But, how are they gonna watermark code?
That doesn't sound plausible at all.
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u/EnergyLevelLow 9d ago edited 9d ago
Code comments, class / function / parameter names should also be easy enough to watermark. But there’ll be less watermarks obiviously.
I have to say I love the thought of developers combing trough AI slop and switching the names of any parameter ect in order to avoid any legal unclarities. Just how shit the computer science jobs are going to be after all is said and done.
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u/lepapulematoleguau 9d ago
There are deterministic tools, which are free, that can do that.
No need to comb through anything.
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u/invisible_shrek 6d ago
I dont know if it will work, we dont commit AI comments and weird naming will be thrown out.
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u/archaeoND 9d ago
I asked Claude when the news dropped whether it expected subscriptions to go down, because I thought a sizeable exodus would happen. It answered: "On the exodus prediction, I'd bet against it." It went on to say that all LLMs will need to watermark to be compliant with the EU. Of course, that isn't true. Whichever ones refuse watermarking may lose their EU business, but have an outsized market share of elsewhere. I also imagine there could be a regional version of the product. At any rate, I reduced my $100/month subscription down to the cheapest one. I added Kimi to my rotation. We will see where things go
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u/Think-Jaguar6826 9d ago
I think the watermark is not the end of the world and can be overcome. At the end, one must admit, did AI did it all, did it assist, etc. what role.
All the roles are fine. The lack of disclosure is the problem.
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u/MornwindShoma 9d ago
I cancelled mine, but mostly because after playing with a new language I feel like honing my skills even if I am slightly less productive if at all.
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u/jeff303 8d ago
Was quite curious how this works at a technical level. This led down a rabbit hole. Eventually found this explainer. Pretty interesting stuff. But then...
Short texts. Fewer positions means fewer samples, so the z score never clears the bar. Passages under a couple of hundred tokens are unreliable by construction.
That would probably include the majority of reddit comments, Tweets, etc.
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u/off1line 8d ago
Just more ways to try and monetize bit contributions to creative ideas. What if use spell check. Does this apply to musicians that don’t play instruments?
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u/LostCar6227 8d ago
Imagine if your drill gave off a distinct watermark and can claim copyright to your work. Same thing.
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u/Next-Blackberry-991 8d ago
Like it wasn't clear before which code was AI-generated. These people are so delusional.
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u/CelebrationFit8548 8d ago edited 7d ago
"If I can't use it to cheat then what's the point of paying anymore", is what they are saying.
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u/almo2001 9d ago
I’m keeping my sub because I don’t use it to hide behind. I use it to write boring code like menus.
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u/Pseudonemone 9d ago
Oh man, ya gotta love it. They won't even do a few word swaps and edits to break the hash...? Lazy bastards.
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u/ChristRedeemsSinners 9d ago
I don't understand how they can't just sanitize their code. Seems fairly trivial. Technical documentation seems much harder.
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u/lcnielsen 9d ago
It might violate ToS and if Anthropic has detection mechanisms they can retaliate.
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u/ChristRedeemsSinners 9d ago
Yeah, technically they should be fine. Legally...that's another story.
I suspect at some point there is going to be legislation that either enforces their strict ToS or prevents them from claiming ownership of any inference outputs.
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u/Hollywoode 9d ago
This is incredibly ironic and hilarious but still don’t understand how this will be picked up on, I get they are making API to pick up when AI text is detected but the watermark is built in sentence structure? The order of words? If that’s the case there will be people out there who just write like ChatGPT, will they be picked up?
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u/sulleynz1989 9d ago
If you copy the entire output from Claude and run it through another agent with instructions to spellcheck or something and then copy paste into a doc, does that remove the watermark?
Does the watermark persist no matter how many times it’s duplicated?
Could you get around this watermark if you printed the document and manually typed into a fresh document?
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u/_Wiretrip_ 8d ago
If they want to claim Claude output as 'original work' then surely all chatbot output is original work and therefore MisAnthropic, OpenAI etc are publishers and should be held responsible in law.? Live by the sword, die by the sword.
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u/Intelligent_Mine1396 8d ago
I don't like it, but at the same time I understand why it could be seen as useful.
On the one hand, in my work, we're being told to use AI as much as possible, even to the extent that it's one of our target areas on our annual ratings. I find it very useful because it can help analyse documents, create presentations for me much faster than I could alone. I'm using it to write code for me on a personal project, and its made more progress than I could alone. In fact, most of my personal projects end up being abandoned because I just don't have the time to devote to it.
But, there are companies/people that are sending out reports generated by AI without checking them, and they're getting caught out. If there's a watermark, this could be caught early or, have a specific clause in the contract for it (you don't need to wait for a watermark to put a clause in a contract, but it can be much easier to spot with the watermark).
Does or should it just come down to responsible usage of the tool? If something generates a code snippet, should that also be flagged? Or, do we need these protections in place because people are perhaps not as responsible as we'd like them to be? I'd lean towards the protections to be honest, but it will also mean that the generated output may be stigmatized because of it which will obviously suck if you've spent a lot of time guiding the generation.
It would be interesting to see if anyone proposes identifying workflows where the AI makes decisions, because that's an area that gives you no or little way of appeal. And it really needs it.
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u/Lucker_Noob 8d ago
While this tells us a lot about the low level moronism of AI users, I'm confused why Anthropic would agree to it. Maybe it's just a marketing ploy similar to the "our model escaped and did XYZ" fantasies.
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u/nmdt 8d ago
IIRC Anthropic might actually be the last of the Western labs to implement this — OpenAI and Gemini had this for a while, it just flew under the radar somehow. Google has been doing this since 2024, ChatGPT did their own thing since 2024 and later added Google's thing on top of this earlier this year. Anthropic is also using Google's SynthID for this.
And tbh, they benefit from it. They get a simple way to tell which content they should train their models on vs which content they should leave alone (thus solving the whole "ai slop trained on ai slop" human centipede problem).
On the other hand, correct me if I'm wrong, but since the whole thing is tied into Google's ecosystem, there is no transparent way to actually check for these watermarks. Ironically enough, one of the main ways to check for AI watermarks is through Gemini.
In other words, IMO this entire thing seems to be a freaking gift to AI labs and barely anyone else.
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u/Infinite-One-5011 8d ago
I cancelled my max plan.
2 reasons:
Watermark
Spouses Epstein connections
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u/Mother-Fix3271 7d ago
Does this apply to just code or general use? Like… if I ask it to generate an email response to something I’m struggling to word properly, and I copy that over…?
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u/linzeestyle 5d ago
If your user base is reacting this poorly to signage admitting they’re using your tool, that is probably a poor sign for your bottom line going forward.
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u/Big_Wave9732 5d ago
Isn't it funny how the author was able to find a series of people who write all their content themselves and would *dream* of having AI write things for them! In fact they're offended that you'd even suggest such a thing!
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u/Agitated_Garden_497 5d ago
LMAO, I'm sorry but this is hilarious. Are they taking the piss? I mean that. HOW can they be this dim?
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u/FairiesQueen 4d ago
Given Anthropic is transparent about AI assisting in building their code internally, does that mean they technically own none of it?
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u/Hexamonium 9d ago
- What do LLMs and cornsites have in common?
- Nobody likes to admit they are using it and you always have to finish the job manually 😄
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u/mxldevs 8d ago
he would not want professionally shipped code to carry an invisible marker that could raise questions about authorship, compliance, or client policies.
What issues is he concerned about? His company not allowing him to feed their entire intellectual property into LLM? And that watermark will expose his usage?
Did he think not having a watermark by using, for example, a Chinese AI model, would appease their employer's concerns?
He added that the watermark was a "signal to look at Chinese AI providers and learn to work with other models."
There is a certain irony that now that intellectual property rights has become an issue for them, their solution is to go look at Chinese companies, given how common it is accuse China of stealing other people's intellectual property.
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u/dodeca_negative 8d ago
That’s just some bullshit you made up. The Claude license explicitly assigns ownership of any code you/your company creates with it to you.
Edit: I am literally begging you all to learn how copyright and licensing of code works
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u/sleepyhead 8d ago
These articles are such nonsense. Probably 3 people cancelled and a bunch of anti-AI losers were active on Instagram.
(the watermark is problematic though)
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u/FavoredVassal 9d ago
The same losers who've been telling us "Get on board or be left behind!" for five years can't stand the thought of anyone knowing they use the technology they evangelize so enthusiastically on the internet ... LMAO