ChatGPT Plus for $20: A Tax on Habit or Real Necessity?

Let's be honest: the monthly $20 charge for ChatGPT Plus has become just as automatic and invisible for many of us as paying for internet or a music subscription. We've gotten used to the fact that you have to pay for magic, otherwise you'll turn into a pumpkin with GPT-3.5 limits.

But the world has changed. While we slept, OpenAI turned the free version into a real monster that can do almost everything the paid account can do. A fair question arises: isn't it time we stopped sponsoring Sam Altman's ambitions out of pure habit?

If the gap between free and paid access used to be the size of the Grand Canyon, today it's more like a barely noticeable crack in the asphalt.

Remember how it was a year ago. Free users were stuck on slow and dumb GPT-3.5, which got confused and produced high school level texts. The paid subscription gave access to GPT-4 — the crown jewel, which solved problems, wrote code, and seemed almost intelligent. Today the situation is different. The GPT-4o model is available to everyone. Yes, free users have message limits, but for an average person who asks the AI to create a workout plan or check a letter in English, these limits are more than enough. You get the same speed and the same intelligence completely free. OpenAI itself created a situation where their flagship product began to cannibalize subscription sales.

So what exactly are we paying two thousand rubles a month for? The main argument today is access to the o1 model series. These guys can "think" before answering and solve complex logical problems. But let's be objective: how often do you need to prove mathematical theorems or hunt for bugs in distributed system architecture? For 90% of everyday tasks, o1-preview is overkill, and sometimes slow. If your work isn't connected to deep programming or scientific research, you're paying for a supercomputer to use it as a calculator. And that's not even mentioning that o1 limits even on the paid plan still sting.

We shouldn't forget about competitors either. While OpenAI tries to keep us in its ecosystem, Anthropic offers Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which many consider more "human" and smarter at writing text. And Claude has a great free tier too. If you use AI occasionally, then the combination of free ChatGPT and Claude will cover all your needs. You get the best of both worlds without spending a cent. In this reality, the Plus subscription starts to look like a tax on laziness — laziness to switch between browser tabs.

Of course, there's a category of people who really need Plus. These are heavy users who generate dozens of DALL-E 3 images daily, use custom GPTs for business automation, or simply can't live without Advanced Voice Mode. For them, $20 is a pittance for a personal assistant that never sleeps.

But if you open a chat three times a day to rephrase a headline, you're simply giving money to one of the richest companies in the world. Moreover, OpenAI recently introduced a Pro tier for $200 a month. This is a clear signal: the company divides users into "ordinary" and "professionals."

And if you're not ready to pay two hundred dollars, maybe you should wonder whether you belong in the category of people who would be just fine with free.

The AI subscription market is oversaturated, and the value of each individual feature is dropping. We're entering an era when intelligence becomes a cheap commodity, almost a utility service. It's worth paying a premium price for it only if this tool directly increases your income or saves you hours every day. In all other cases, it's just another line item in your bank statement that warms your soul with awareness of your participation in technological progress, but brings no real benefit.

Bottom line: Most individual ChatGPT users no longer need Plus. The free GPT-4o version and competition from Claude have made the $20 paid subscription an excessive luxury. Are you ready to hit Cancel just to experiment?