The first batch of "lobster farmers" has already started paying to have people come and uninstall them on-site.

Blue Whale News, March 10th (Reporter Hao Yan) After the explosive popularity of OpenClaw, the first to profit was on-site installation. However, in less than a week, “uninstallation” services have also become a new business.

On-site uninstallation of the “Lobster” service appears, with prices lower than “on-site installation.”

Recently, AI model OpenClaw has gone viral across the internet, making “on-site installation” a hot topic. Previously, Blue Whale News investigation found that due to the installation complexity of the open-source intelligent agent project OpenClaw, the “paid on-site installation of OpenClaw” business surged. Prices ranged from 500 yuan to over a thousand yuan per session, but this did not dampen the public’s enthusiasm for AI. Some service providers revealed they could receive about 30 inquiries in a day, and a netizen claimed to have earned 260,000 yuan from this business.

However, the rapid rise also brought various issues, and OpenClaw quickly shifted from “installation” to “uninstallation.”

Blue Whale News checked second-hand trading platforms and found that many “on-site uninstallation of OpenClaw” services are now listed. Service details state: “Professional remote/on-site uninstallation, safe, clean, and residue-free,” while some posts claim “on-site uninstallation relieves your AI anxiety,” “one visit to thoroughly uninstall, protecting the best humans,” and “cures all kinds of AI addiction, token depletion anxiety, Riemann hypothesis obsession…”

Although it sounds like a joke, multiple shop owners confirmed to Blue Whale News that “on-site uninstallation” services do exist. “People are already inquiring; some are worried about security risks, others think it’s too costly.” Compared to the “installation” costs, “uninstallation” is noticeably cheaper, ranging from 29.9 to 299 yuan. One shop owner told Blue Whale News: “Of course it’s cheaper. Uninstalling isn’t as complicated as installing, and there’s no need to explain how to use it, which saves a lot of trouble.”

Lobster Trial Fever

Although OpenClaw was officially released as early as November 2025, it only recently gained widespread popularity, and “raising lobsters” has become an absolute hot topic.

The “lobster craze” first spread among major tech companies. Almost simultaneously, domestic internet tech firms launched one-click deployment services for OpenClaw, tailored for different scenarios. Xiaomi released a similar mobile product, Xiaomi Miclaw, and began internal testing; Tencent’s “Lobster” WorkBuddy was officially launched recently; ByteDance’s Volcano Engine also launched ArkClaw on the same day…

This “lobster fever” has also attracted continuous policy support from various local governments.

On March 8th, Shenzhen Longgang District’s AI (robotics) bureau publicly solicited opinions on the “Measures to Support the Development of OpenClaw & OPC in Longgang District” (draft for comments). The measures include ten support points for OpenClaw and OPC development, such as encouraging market-oriented, professional platform services to launch “Lobster Service Zones,” offering free deployment services for OpenClaw, and providing subsidies for qualified projects; supporting the development and promotion of OpenClaw-like intelligent agent tools, etc.

On March 9th, Wuxi High-tech Zone issued the “Measures to Support the Integration of OpenClaw and Other Open Source Community Projects with OPC Community.”

Changshu also released the “Measures to Accelerate the Development of OpenClaw and Other Open Source Communities to Promote High-Quality Industry Development” (draft for comments), with 13 initiatives focusing on AI empowering high-quality industry growth and building a nationally leading AI+ innovation application demonstration zone.

The First Victims of OpenClaw Have Emerged

However, alongside the enthusiasm, the hidden risks and problems of OpenClaw are gradually surfacing.

The most immediate risk comes from costs. Compared to the 500 yuan per on-site installation fee, ongoing use of OpenClaw has become a “token money pit.”

A blogger posted that they deployed OpenClaw on their computer over the weekend, and after a night, it asked a few questions, helped check some data, and then 1 million tokens were gone, and they owed money… Guojin Securities analysis pointed out that the popularity of OpenClaw has driven a surge in token consumption. According to OpenRouter, OpenClaw currently ranks first in App & Agent popularity, with a total token consumption reaching 8.52 trillion.

Another major risk is security.

According to Beijing Daily, Summer Yue, Director of AI Alignment and Safety at Meta’s Superintelligence Laboratory, recently experienced an OpenClaw out-of-control incident, where over 200 emails in her personal inbox were deleted. “Nothing is more devastating than commanding OpenClaw to ‘confirm before operating,’ then watching it rapidly delete inbox contents.”

The Ministry of Public Security’s Cybersecurity Level Protection Center recently issued a warning that OpenClaw is a typical “execution-type intelligent agent,” whose core capability is not generating text but executing operations. This means its security risks extend from content safety to real system-level threats.

Additionally, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also issued an alert, warning that open-source AI agent OpenClaw, if misconfigured or used with default settings, poses high security risks. The MIIT pointed out that some instances of OpenClaw may lack sufficient permission control or have configuration flaws, leading to network attacks, information leaks, and other security issues. They advise relevant organizations and users to check exposure to the internet and strengthen permission management when deploying OpenClaw.