It was the only clear model from a user's perspective. Sure, a request may not perform as expected, or end earlier than desired, but it was an agreed to cost that was clear on both sides: 1 enter press in a prompt window = 1 request.

If they wanted to limit what a request can do via their harness, I'm sure they artificially could.

I hate all of the other plans I've seen of here a "credit" or here's a "bucket of usage", and we pull an announced amount from it based on arbitrary info that can't be audited or proven, and most of shat is spent might be entirely useless anyway.

Claude Code has a problem where 1 request could take a significant portion of your 5 hour window, and it's unclear why.

It's much like SEO, where Google sometimes says things that might help, but it's just magic wand eaving hoping something works.