Anthropic continues to serve haiku - which suggests people have a use for less-than sota models.
A bugatti is undoubtedly a higher performance car than a honda civic. Yet if you're commuting to work in rush hour traffic, both cars will get you there in the same amount of time - and one is going to cost you a lot less.
The pitch of the frontier labs is that you need a bugatti for everything. I don't buy that.