# Anthropic briefly walled off its top coding tool behind a $100 paywall. The real story was everything that came before.

- slug: anthropic-briefly-walled-off-its-top-coding-tool-behind-a-100-paywall-the-real-story-was-everyth
- date: 2026-04-22
- category: Artificial Intelligence

On Tuesday Anthropic quietly moved its top coding tool behind a $100 paywall. By Wednesday it was gone — reversed faster than a software bug fix, but not before Simon Willison documented the whole thing and the market drew its own conclusions.

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