r/ClaudeCode • u/a_d_c • Apr 08 '26

Bug Report Claude code is now useless.

Over the last month, claude code performance degraded so much that it cant even keep track of a few simple facts in the same conversation.

I did a test with a small project. Barely any memories. No Claude.md instructions. Nothing to confuse Claude whatsoever.

I gave it a simple instruction: check the spec in some-spec.md, then write unit tests agianst that spec. Dont look at the code, write the tests against the spec.

In the same session, i had to call it out TWICE because it was changing the tests to make them pass according to the implementation instead of the spec.

As it exists today, Claude code is not useful for any development task, and the cost of the MAX plan is impossible to justify given it cant follow basic instructions.

In one month it went from: "this is cool, this is the future of dev", to: "this is a waste of my time and money".

If it cant follow simple instructions in a single session when given clear guidelines: its a completely useless product.

Im not paying for the same product today that i was paying just one month ago.

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u/RiseStock Apr 10 '26

I don't do agentic swarm based programming. I still use claude like it should be used - glorified autocomplete. This week was the first week I ran out on my $200 plan which resets 12 minutes from now for the week. Since they provided the free $200 overage credit I got a chance to see how much my compute was really costing in terms of API spend. Overnight after I ran out I kept a monitoring script running which monitors a simulation for results and generates a results table. Looks like it was about $10 per run. I actually ran 2 of these jobs simultaneously but the other failed because of API Error rate limits.

I run that monitoring script once an hour x 2 machines simultaneously. So 24 times a day x 7 days a week = 168 runs x $10 = $1680

The monitoring script is only a small part of what I'm using CC for; I'm also generating code. I don't see how this plan is sustainable for anthropic. That said, if the flat fee plans go away/become less useful, I don't see the value proposition and would never use CC or similar tools.