But they also claim this new model uses fewer tokens, so it still might ultimately be cheaper even if per token cost is higher.
I guess they have to sell to investors that the price to operate is going down, while still needing more from the user to be sustainable
Anthropic is pulling the plug on Haiku 3 in a couple months, and they haven't released anything in that price range to replace it.
They're framing it pretty directly "We want you to think bigger cost means better model"