Artificial intelligence company Anthropic recently temporarily banned Peter Steinberger, the creator of the open-source tool OpenClaw, from accessing its Claude platform. Steinberger shared a screenshot on social media X indicating his account was suspended due to "suspicious" activity. This action came shortly after Anthropic's policy update last week: Claude subscriptions will no longer cover third-party tools like OpenClaw, effectively imposing extra fees on developers using such tools—jokingly referred to as the "claw tax." Anthropic cites security concerns, but the incident quickly ignited controversy.
Steinberger stated that he complied with the new rules using the API but was still blocked. He questioned the timing, noting that Anthropic first integrated popular features from open-source tools into its own agent, Cowork, such as Claude Dispatch for remote task control, before marginalizing the open-source ecosystem. Although Anthropic later restored Steinberger's access, the dispute underscores growing tensions between AI platforms and third-party developers. As firms like Anthropic tighten API controls, the ecosystem developers depend on faces uncertainty.
