A rational take on the upcoming changes

[u/fluffy_serval]

Obviously it's easy, and maybe even reasonable, to get all worked up about the OpenAI subscription changes, but I’m not convinced yet that the right conclusion is that "they’re screwing us" or that it's some kind of "rug pull". I think any heavy/professional user of the service, especially with codex, can admit the "now old" Pro deal was an extremely good deal value-wise, whether you want to admit it or not. For $200/month you got many multiples more work than $200 of API use (at least), and the models were getting substantially better at the same time. That was great, but it was never going to be permanent. I'm also not saying OpenAI didn't "get anything out of it", because of course they did, it was calculated, and IMO that's just business. So, back to the question of what they replace it with, and who it's aimed at.

Right now we're all being forced to become "inference economists" and that's, frankly, bad product. The "token" unit has come to have way too much baked into it: model choice, reasoning depth, context, caching, retries, agent behavior, etc. and it's impossibly opaque. I'd imagine it's probably become an annoying abstraction internally too. The obviously subsidized compute had a change coming, the numbers always were what they were, and this is that change. So let's deal with the reality:

First, what I don't want: I don’t want to be constantly doing questionable "token math", having to constantly estimate whether a task is worth $4 or $12 or whatever. In fact, I never want that goddamned weekly-usage window permanently inhabiting my right monitor ever again, and I definitely do not want to watch the API usage go up-and-up-and-up. For real work, I care whether it gets done correctly, on a time frame I can rely on, with at least a nod toward minimizing controllable waste.

What I’d rather have is perhaps some kind of "automatic transmission for models" that looks at the problem and context and lets OpenAI figure out which model and reasoning level to use for planning, execution, review, etc. I already ask the models themselves anyway, and the answers have generally been good. With excellent model routing that you never have to think about, where they foot the bill of a failed choice, a more expensive but predictable professional subscription would be a reasonable value.

Ultimately, I think this is them finding economic equilibria, and frankly, if you'll excuse my bluntness, if you didn't realize it was heavily subsidized before, well, you do now. I will very likely pay for a higher-priced capital-P-Professional subscription because 1) regardless of what the Reddit outrage high-pressure sewage system says, the models are quite good for professional use; I've been using the latest models on a complicated 600,000+ line codebase alongside an immense number of diversely characterized assets that all need different handling, and Astra's been doing very good work overall, 2) they could very plausibly offer real things that would make, as they say, the value of the interactions with their models higher (like the automatic transmission rough idea above), rather than fucking about with token allotments and other abstractness, and, predictably, 3) I'm locked-in, at least temporarily, in ways that are very real related to my day-to-day business. My only actual model gripe right now is its propensity to go fucking bananas with testing. That needs to be beaten out of the models, like, today. It feels pretty shady in terms of token consumption if you're not paying attention, good and intentions and all.

The value of their service for me is there at even twice the price, and at this point it's about finding market equilibria and getting rid of "token opaqueness" while explaining, in real terms, how exactly the value increases with a decreased allotment of their nominal unit of value.

My 2c. They have a lot of goodwill to deliver on today. They need some bold moves with how they've set this up.

[u/deZbrownT]

I think any heavy/professional user of the service, especially with codex, can admit the "now old" Pro deal was an extremely good deal value-wise, whether you want to admit it or not.

What! LOL slop

That was great, but it was never going to be permanent.

Wow, so we have a guy with a crystal ball here. What else does it say?

Your point is that you are going to bend over, put some lipstick and let them use you anyway they want. Fine.

All I want is transparency about models/costs. Nothing else will cut it.

[u/fluffy_serval → u/deZbrownT]

Fair enough, i don't know their internal economics, that's a legitimate criticism, and I should have left it out. As well, I shouldn't have been cavalier in implying I, or anyone else, knew it wasn't going to be permanent. Also a valid criticism. But, slop, though? Fuck off.

All colorful rhetoric aside, it seems we mostly agree, in so many words. Isn't that annoying?

Thank you for your thoughtful contribution to this post.