Back when OpenAI announced its newest ChatGPT subscription downgrades changes — at the end of September this year — we pointed out that the company seems intent on a Corey Docterow speedrun. The company’s latest change is set to cement its slide deeper into enshittification.
That’s because, as of December this year, subscribers to OpenAI’s Plus, Pro, and Business plans will see their ChatGPT and Codex usage limits combined. The reason given for this is that “we bring the agentic capabilities of Work into the main ChatGPT experience.”
Token ChatGPT joke
Usage of the two chatbot services “will be measured in tokens, the units of information a model processes and generates. How much of your allowance you use will depend on the model you choose and the task you ask it to do. More advanced models and complex tasks generally use more of your allowance. Instant chat will not draw from your usage.”
In practical terms, however, OpenAI’s changes mean that paying subscribers will burn through their recently altered rate limits even faster. Either that, or they’ll have to carefully curate what they’re used to doing, since the company doesn’t seem interested in providing a tool to assist. The point is to extract even more cash from the company’s subscriber base. That’s not conjecture, either.
Users have to manually monitor their usage. If they run over, there are… options. None are very pleasant for end users. “If you reach your limit, you can wait for it to reset, upgrade your plan, or buy credits to continue using eligible features,” OpenAI said in its Help Center update. In other words, you’ll soon receive even less than you’re used to paying for. It was… inevitable, really.
