upvote
>as in, if they capture every single professional software dev and extract $1000 from them every month, their yearly revenue will be like $500B. do your own back of the envelope on that with ongoing costs and consider how unrealistic a goal this actually is.

The market for Claude Code is much bigger than professional software devs. It's really anyone who uses a computer. I already know normal people who have been using it for personal software.

reply
>The market for Claude Code is much bigger than professional software devs. It's really anyone who uses a computer.

I'm sorry and I'm sure you are being honest in knowing non-tech people using it, but this is on the whole false. The vast majority of people not only have no interest in "personal software" or using Claude for programming, but the slice of the population that does actively interact with AI is using free chatbots as a nu-Google. Most tech people don't even want the "personal software" thing, I don't know why this line is being pushed as if your grandma is going to make her own calorie counter app one day.

reply
i have non-tech friends who actually do personal software. personally i don’t have any desire to. i don’t think grandma would justify the valuation tho
reply
I just don't see this right now. Every time I think of an idea to vibe code up I see someone else has already done it and is actively maintaining it on github. Why would I bother paying to make it myself when someone else is already doing it and other users have already reported all the issues?
reply
AI spend is slowing: https://ramp.com/data/ai-index-oct-2026

What's your source to the contrary?

reply
What do you mean, "what's my source to the contrary". What you wrote has absolutely zero connection to what I wrote. Did you mean to reply to someone else?
reply
What is your source for them having a larger market?

Total addressable *market.* If Anthropic still had market to address, we would still be seeing consistent growth.

reply
Not really. Random non tech users won't pay $100/mo. Nor should they, most people will be served fine by whatever free thing MS bundles in Windows next year.
reply
Also, most people don't want to build software. They just don't care. There'll be tinkerers like with anything, and I'm sure some people will create solutions to their niche problems with (as you say) 'whatever free thing MS bundles in Windows'. But like the programming trope - they'll build the 'ultimate' todo list and feel like it's an amazing achievement, but be back to pen and paper/notepad/todoist within 6 months.
reply
In most office jobs, at western salaries, you don't need much productivity improvement to offset $100/mo

Though I would expect the majority to do fine with $20/mo. That's the same effective cost as replacing a $500 computer every two years, which is the sort of expense most companies are comfortable doing without much second thought

reply
You don't need to spend $100/mo. They have other price points. And I think you and others are underestimating the appetite out there to be able to create personal custom software. It's empowering. Like I said, I see tons of people I know who can't code who have started doing this (and been very happy with it).
reply
Right, and by mid-2027 whatever MS builds into Windows by default for free will handle most of that by the general public.

Most people aren't engineers and do not care about custom software.

reply
The vast, vast majority of people are happy enough using free chatgpt. Openai could just add a kind of online app development/marketplace thing to chatgpt and that'd entirely steal the personal custom software thing. But I don't really think most people care that much.
reply
You don't have to skip the plumber or the mechanic many times before $100 becomes a plainly obvious need.

It's not gonna install a shower for you, but it will confidently walk you through that leaky faucet. And I don't know if you have paid a pro recently, but they don't charge $20 for a 20 minute fix.

reply
Indeed. On the other hand, I fixed my underfloor heating with the free claude version, so unless they remove the free tier, I still have no reason to pay for it.

It's quite a leap to assume any kind of issue would require a $100 subscription. Plumbing, mechanics, electricity ... The issues are usually far easier to trace and debug than in software, because the systems have been designed by smarter people.

You're not buying some arcane and complex solution, you're buying the convenience of not watching a couple of youtube videos or articles of someone troubleshooting the exact issue you're having.

reply
False dichotomy.

Free tiers of essentially any AI model would be able to do the same. People will use what MS bundled for free.

reply
To boot even if you skip the free models, you could probably do a year's DIY assistance with 50 cents worth of GLM or Deepseek tokens. And the really costly jobs are ones where an AI assistant won't really help since, shockingly, most of the cost is hours of labor which you would have to do yourself.
reply
I'm too old to fall for the 'ole "introductory pricing" game hah
reply
or Google / Apple, mobile devices are the primary platform for many people
reply
idk abt you but i just replaced a faucet by watching a youtube video of a middle aged guy. ya’ll are using opus 5.5 for that?
reply
Since when have you not been able to easily find a free youtube video for this?
reply
You can't ask a YouTube video, which often is different in subtle ways to your problem, clarifying questions.

The step-by-step customized hand holding of LLMs is something totally new

reply
How often are you having a plumber or mechanic come?
reply
The actual question to ask is

"How often are people paying at least $600 annually for something AI can help them do instead"

and the other half is "How often can AI help someone boost their productivity over $600 in a year"

I also don't think people will even need $100 plans for this. Plans will probably land in the $60/mo range.

reply
> How often are people paying at least $600 annually for something AI can help them do instead

I'm going to need an example on this one, and examples that can't be covered equally well by a YouTube video or an 20 year old forum post. It also has to be legal, as in not violating codes for electrics or plumping, I can violate those on my own for free.

reply
"How often are people paying at least $600 annually for something paid AI can help them do, that free AI can't"

Muse is free. You can chat with Gemini in Google results for free.

reply
Yes, and you can take an uber across town for $5, no tip either.
reply
>"How often are people paying at least $600 annually for something AI can help them do instead"

Not that often.

reply
Most people have no interest in fixing the leaky faucet themselves, even if the already knew how and didn’t need an LLM to explain how. They’d rather pay someone and do something else with time saved.
reply
>"How often are people paying at least $600 annually for something AI can help them do instead"

AI recently told me that my oven was broken because a part that doesn't exist on the oven I own was malfunctioning. A bunch of people poking around with electronics, motors, etc. because they think their AI chatbot can fix anything and everything is going to lead to injuries, deaths, and most assuredly more money in the long haul.

reply
leaky faucet fix is already supported by gemini on google search lol, this usecase doesn't need 100$ anthropic model. And if you think google will be bleeding on gemini you're just dead wrong
reply
The lawyers and finance folks I know are all using Claude. I don’t think it’s as limited to coding right now as you’re thinking
reply
deleted
reply
I agree, I would say $500 billion valuation is fair, they don't have a moat and open models are catching up, they have a limited products with strong competitors, if they have a step change model in the pipeline now would be a good time to release it.
reply
>the market for their valuation is just not there imo

I tried to look for the valuation in the linked document, did you see it or any reference to a valuation elsewhere in anything published by Anthropic? what is "their valuation" that you refer to?

reply