Users Accuse Anthropic of Secretly Degrading Claude

Developers and power users are flooding social media with complaints that Claude Opus 4.6 and Claude Code have declined in quality, citing weaker reasoning, abandoned tasks, and increased hallucinations. Some call it AI shrinkflation, suggesting customers are paying the same price for a lesser product. Others allege Anthropic may be throttling the model during peak demand periods. The claims remain unproven, and Anthropic employees have publicly denied intentionally degrading performance.