You're hitting on something really important that barely gets discussed. For instance, notice how opus 4.5's speed essentially doubled, bringing it right in line with the speed of sonnet 4.5? (sonnet 4.6 got a speed bump too, though closer to 25%).
It was the very first thing I noticed: it looks suspiciously like they just rebranded sonnet as opus and raised the price.
I don't know why more people aren't talking about this. Even on X, where the owner directly competes in this market, it's rarely brought up. I strongly suspect there is a sort of tacit collusion between competitors in
this space. They all share a strong motivation to kill any deep discussion of token economics, even about each other because transparency only arms the customers.
By keeping the underlying mechanics nebulous, they can all justify higher prices. Just look at the subscription tiers: every single major player has settled on the exact same pricing model, a $20 floor and a $200 cap, no exceptions.
It was the very first thing I noticed: it looks suspiciously like they just rebranded sonnet as opus and raised the price.
I don't know why more people aren't talking about this. Even on X, where the owner directly competes in this market, it's rarely brought up. I strongly suspect there is a sort of tacit collusion between competitors in this space. They all share a strong motivation to kill any deep discussion of token economics, even about each other because transparency only arms the customers. By keeping the underlying mechanics nebulous, they can all justify higher prices. Just look at the subscription tiers: every single major player has settled on the exact same pricing model, a $20 floor and a $200 cap, no exceptions.