Claude's latest models are getting preachy and inconsistent, and longtime users are noticing

I used to love Claude, but the latest models are slowly ruining it

The author, a longtime Claude user, says recent models have become overly cautious and inconsistent. A fictional story prompt about aliens challenging religious claims was flatly refused by Sonnet 5, yet the same prompt worked in a fresh chat. Pushback also occurs on religion comparisons, financial planning, and brainstorming. The author suspects Anthropic cranked up safety guardrails after Fable 5 was flagged by the government. Opus 4.8, Sonnet 5, and Sonnet 4.6 show the most refusals; Opus 4.6 and 4.7 are more usable. Reddit threads echo the frustration.

Why it matters: A user critique with concrete examples, not vague complaints. Sonnet 5 refused a fictional story but accepted it in a fresh window — the issue is safety classifier misclassification, not model degradation. Score capped because it's a single anecdotal observation without system...