Claude Code promo ends, users hit limits

The post is more cynical than the evidence demands, but it lands on a real product truth: for AI coding tools, quota policy feels like workflow design, not billing trivia.

• –The official notice verifies the promo, its March 27 end date, and that off-peak usage did not count toward weekly limits: [Anthropic Help Center](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/14063676-claude-spring-break-usage-promotion).
• –Claude Code is built for the terminal, IDE, web, and Slack, so cap changes land in the middle of active engineering sessions: [Claude Code](https://claude.com/product/claude-code).
• –Anthropic has already tightened Claude Code before; TechCrunch reported weekly rate limits for heavy users in July 2025: [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/28/anthropic-unveils-new-rate-limits-to-curb-claude-code-power-users/).
• –The "subsidize, addict, extract" framing is dramatic, but the underlying tension is real: expensive inference pushes subscription AI toward caps, tiers, and peak-hour shaping.