{
  "video_id": "reddit_1ud0h4p",
  "channel_slug": "ClaudeAI",
  "channel_handle": "r/ClaudeAI",
  "title": "Severely diminished performance following Usage Policy warning. Claude is now silently underperforming on every task-- what's going on?",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1ud0h4p/severely_diminished_performance_following_usage/",
  "external_url": null,
  "upload_date": "20260622",
  "published_at": "2026-06-22T23:22:26+00:00",
  "transcript": "I'm an American journalist and researcher living overseas working on a project involving a cybersecurity issue. I've been using Claude Cowork (Max 20x plan) to compile information. A few days ago out of the blue, I got an error entitled, \"It looks like a few of your recent prompts don't meet our Usage Policy,\" after attempting to use Claude to summarize information posted by a ransomware group. \n\nI did not ask Claude to perform any sort of malicious action-- I literally gave it a list of ransomware victims and asked it to compile a csv file containing the names. This was my first time ever receiving a Usage Policy warning after more than a year of using Claude, and I don't think I violated any policies. \n\nSince getting this error, I feel like Claude has been silently underperforming on everything I do-- even things unrelated to the project run in a new chat. Opus High is performing on the same level as Sonnet Medium, and I almost get the feeling it is being deliberately unhelpful at times even regarding the most mundane of topics. \n\nOne specific example-- the floor heating in my apartment is currently malfunctioning and still generates heat despite it being turned off. I've been trying to diagnose the problem with Claude today. I explained that the floor is so warm I can dry my laundry on it, and then Claude-- forgetting the rest of our conversation history-- suggested that my laundry was the cause of the floor being warm:\n\n* **Me**: The floor is still warm to the touch, especially in certain areas. I am currently drying my laundry on it.\n* **Claude (Opus 4.8 Medium):** Ah — that changes the picture, and it points at you, gently. Wet laundry sitting on the floor traps heat and moisture against it, so the spots under your clothes will feel warmer and damper than bare floor regardless of whether the heating is on\n\nI feel like this must be performance throttling. Claude Opus cannot be this stupid. Has anyone else experienced dimished performance  following a Usage Policy warning? If so, does it resolve after a certain amount of time, or is this all in my head? I'm pretty frustrated and just want to get the same level of performance back that I had before.\n\n  \nI'm also wondering if having a non-US IP is part of the problem and am curious if Claude is silently restricting accounts outside the US?\n\n\n\n--- Top Comments ---\n\n\n[44 upvotes] A lot of people on the sub have been complaining about 4.8 getting dumber all of a sudden recently. I've seen it too. My suspicion is that they are gearing up to re-release Fable with identity verification to address ITAR requirements in the US... it seems like performance of the existing top-tier model always degrades in the run-up to a new release as they shift compute around. So this may be correlation rather than causation.\n\n[23 upvotes] I was gonna say it’s you not Claude but damn, that response to your message\n\n[9 upvotes] Contact support, and ask them to take it off.\n\n[9 upvotes] This project measures the performance of models comparing daily same task results. It would indicate that the Opus model is not dumber today than it was a few days ago. https://modelregression.com",
  "transcript_chars": 3162,
  "ingested_at": "2026-06-23T01:30:07.556181+00:00",
  "source": "reddit",
  "yt_meta": {
    "score": 51,
    "upvote_ratio": 0.78,
    "num_comments": 30,
    "author": "redcremesoda",
    "is_self": true
  }
}