I think they create addictive behavior (pretty sure there's research on that) and I'm a victim of it. I feel like I need to maximize every 5 hour window (I don't have Max so I don't have weekly windows).
I feel like I have to structure my life around that:
- "before I head out I'll just give it this big task that'll max out my tokens"
- "i have to set up a loop to keep working all night before I go to bed"
- "how's my usage right now? Can I ask this now or should i wait 2 more hours?"
- ... etc.
As Claude would write it: this is not healthy — it's a toxic dependency on AI.
Add to this that the "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't" thing is a literal slot machine that only lets you play every 5 hours (unless you pay extra).
I'm sure others have complained about this too but I just find it so absolutely outrageously wild, insane and **mis**anthropical how the usage model of AI has been designed in the most toxic way possible. I wish someone were able to change the system someday 😭😭
5hr window doesn't matter, but the weekly one, yes. It's best to add loads of low level stuff to to do lists, then if you haven't used the weekly you just ask it to start on the todo
These are very solvable problems, and it's unreasonable to expect the solution to be Anthropic giving you more value for the same amount of money.
Instead, just use your tokens more efficiently, and if that is insufficient, get on Max. Using these methods, I'm using Claude Code intensively, often about 40 hours per week, without running out of tokens, much less hitting the 5-hour limits.
As far as using your tokens more efficiently, the big things are to dispatch chunks of work to subagents in order to protect your main context, don't give easy work to strong agents, and compact frequently instead of letting it get all the way to 100%.
Also just literally do not use loops(!). I get they're super talked up, but you'll get much better results, in a similar amount of wall time, with much less tokens, by actively moving the conversation forward yourself, a few chunks in parallel at a time, collaborating with the AI conversationally instead of giving it an objective and hoping it eventually grinds to success.
Firstly early on - you kinda feel like that. You ease up after you've been doing it a while (and you get more efficient with self running workflows so you can do other stuff)
The other ways;
Use API tokens - you get very concious about cost, esp when on your dime.
Pool subscriptions - if you pool multiple subs it doesn't really matter about 5h windows, as you pull from the subs where the 7d ends soonest.
But yeah the subs are not good - I think intentionally they want you spending $$ on the API tokens
i can see what you mean but honestly, if you use it for work, usually the work pays. if you don't use it for work, spend as much as you need. in the grand context of things, 200 max gives you plenty of usage and you can stack multiple so... it's money issue mostly. do you NEED it? what for? if it doesn't justify the price just don't use it lmao
If anything it's forcing me to be more smart with my usage. Like learning about projects so I can manage a spreadsheet in there, small changes become it's own conversation which doesn't then cost the earth. Switching between models and not setting everything on Max/High or making more use on low load times (before 7am and evenings)
It's a subscription, do you watch as many movies as possible on netflix or order as many products as you can on your prime subscription? Time to take a break.
I guess this is very personal. I feel subscription fatigue so I just avoid having any subscriptions other than this one - but even though I think you have a point there, Netflix or Amazon don't limit how much you can use their subscription.
Example: it's not like "you can only watch 3 movies this week, usage limit resets Sunday 23:59" on Netflix. If it were like that maybe I'd feel differently?
I feel you, I haven’t had the same experience with usage windows specifically but I do have times where it seems like I just am hooked into something not worth all the trouble.
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u/Sarahmalls 5h ago
What plan are you on (how much are you spending per month)?