After weeks of concentrated user complaints, AI company Anthropic issued its first public response, acknowledging that recent experiences with its coding tool Claude Code have declined and revealing that the issue stems from multiple product-level adjustments. In a lengthy post, Anthropic stated it investigated feedback on "performance degradation" and confirmed that the underlying models remained unchanged. Instead, three product optimization measures combined negatively impacted actual usage performance. Specifically, these included lowering the default "thinking level," introducing bugs through cache optimizations, and modifying system prompts intended to reduce verbose outputs. This announcement comes amid growing dissatisfaction among users regarding Claude Code's performance. Multiple developers reported significant declines in complex engineering tasks across platforms like GitHub and Reddit, describing the tool as "lazy" or "degraded." Some users initially speculated the company had deliberately weakened ("nerfed") the model's capabilities—a claim Anthropic explicitly denied. The company noted that by April 20, all aforementioned issues were resolved. Preventive measures implemented include expanding internal employee access to the public release, strengthening code review processes, and establishing stricter control mechanisms over future system prompt modifications. Notably, this controversy emerged while Anthropic's prominence continues to rise. Its technical capabilities previously earned widespread industry recognition, and its valuation during secondary market transactions briefly reached trillion-dollar levels. Meanwhile, the company was also testing subscription strategy adjustments, including attempts to make Claude Code unavailable within Pro plans for certain new users. Anthropic announced it would reset usage quotas for all subscribed users and thanked the community for their feedback. Following the official statement, some users expressed feeling validated, confirming earlier assessments that product experience had indeed deteriorated.