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I think it’s a misread to think the default ChatGPT model switching to GPT 5.6 Luna is some sort of desperation move. Keep in mind that Claude .ai never had thi

by firasd 1mo ago

I think it’s a misread to think the default ChatGPT model switching to GPT 5.6 Luna is some sort of desperation move. Keep in mind that Claude .ai never had this extreme stratification between the frontier models and the free tier (Sonnet is available to free users with rate limits). So 5.6 Luna is just their next version of what they used to call 5.5 instant tier And 5.x instant models were never much to write home about anyway so the default ChatGPT free model hasn’t been particularly distinctive since 4o

freakynit 1mo ago
Claude's rate limits are absolutely shit for free users. 3 chats and its gone for 24 hours.
- claudiug 1mo ago
  I dont see that, and I have a lot of chats, long messages, and is not 3 chats.
  - vezycash 1mo ago
    It has limits when there's an attachment in that chat session. Switch to a new chat and you're good to go
- drnick1 1mo ago
  Yes, but you can create multiple accounts. It has to be inconvenient enough or no one would pay for the higher tiers.
- robomartin 1mo ago
  It's one thing to be a free user...quite another to be an entitled free user. This is precisely why I do not offer anything for free. I've been there and done it back in the iPhone 3 era with a dozen apps. Learned my lesson quickly. Never again. It was a nightmare. If the product isn't good enough for someone to pay for it (that could be direct user-paid or advertiser supported) it should not exist.
  - asadotzler 1mo ago
    If your free tier is marketed as a free tier but really it's just "your first hit is free" like your crack dealer's marketing, then it's a fraud on the user, a scam to get you hooked and paying. I am not an entitled user for thinking a free tier designed to provide half the answer and make me pay for the second half is a scam from an evil corporation and to call that out. Also, it is intended to be supported by ads, so it fits your ideal product description quite well despite being a scam.
    - robomartin 1mo ago
      > "your first hit is free" like your crack dealer's marketing Oh, please. Don't use it then. Simple. Sign of entitlement: You get something of value for free, bitch about limitations and make-up bogus reasons to continue using the product without paying. If it is of value, use it and pay for it. If it isn't, do not use it and you have nothing to worry about. You are bitching about having access to untold billions of dollars of infrastructure and a massive amount of work from people who have lives and families FOR FREE. Get a grip dude. I use it for work, extensively, and I gladly pay for the services from a number of AI providers. I would gladly pay double. It's the no-brainer of the century: I can do months of work in weeks or less for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per month. I was talking to someone the other day who shares their Netflix account for four other families. Same thing, although, in this case, it's not entitlement, it's theft. They are both versions of the tragedy of the commons in various ways.
      - ragequittah 1mo ago
        Most of the stuff I use is free and excellent. Linux, Firefox, libreoffice, xcp-ng, bottles, steam, playnite, opnsense, docker, dockhand, immich, freshrss, obsidian, tailscale, calibre, caddy, docker, pi-hole, signal, audiobookshelf I could probably keep going for a long while. I'm very glad most good software creators I've come across do not have your mindset.
        robomartin 1mo ago
samsolomon 1mo ago
Honestly, given the price 5.6 Luna is pretty fantastic. I replaced GPT 4.1 mini in several projects. It's also 50% cheaper if you only need it to run sometime in the next 24 hours.
- MarkMarine 1mo ago
  Flex tier is just as cheap but you don't need to deal with batching or waiting. I see it completing in about ~3x-10x the latency of normal calls, so in seconds. You can always route back to regular if you're getting 429'd on flex too. Flex is also easier to get caching to work, there is a little futzing around with OAI's implicit caching but if you do the upfront work you can get haiku quality responses with caching in close to realtime for 1/7th the cost and you don't need to design a polling loop to check for batch completions
- electroglyph 1mo ago
  yep, agreed. little bit smarter than deepseek 4 flash, but a little bit worse at tool calls.
throwaway473825 1mo ago
I think the main competitor to OpenAI's free tier is Google Search's AI Overview powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite. OpenAI's free tier needs to be notably better than that for people to bother. There's also Gemini 3.6 Flash with a generous free tier.
- stephbook 1mo ago
  I'm getting all my questions (3-10 each evening) answered by "Gemini Pro Extended" in the free tier, sometimes with PDFs or photos attached. I wouldn't bother with anything "free" below that, unless I'm agentic coding or something.
  - dotancohen 1mo ago
    Are you certain they are the correct answers? No other AI tool halucinations so confidently for me as does Gemini. And I get them across so many topics.
    - stephbook 1mo ago
      Yes, but I do instruct it to give me the explanations. Maybe that helps.
    - subscribed 1mo ago
      Also had a terrible experience with Gemini with codibg: it would just show me trimmed diff (to show the changes it made), then........ commit the actually trimmed contents to the original files, discarding everything that was in between.
lxgr 1mo ago
> So 5.6 Luna is just their next version of what they used to call 5.5 instant tier I wonder if this means that Luna is more, uhm, "free tier like" in its responses? The "Instant"/"Chat" models have a pretty particular vibe.

by firasd 1mo ago

freakynit 1mo ago

Claude's rate limits are absolutely shit for free users. 3 chats and its gone for 24 hours.

claudiug 1mo ago
I dont see that, and I have a lot of chats, long messages, and is not 3 chats.
- vezycash 1mo ago
  It has limits when there's an attachment in that chat session. Switch to a new chat and you're good to go
drnick1 1mo ago
Yes, but you can create multiple accounts. It has to be inconvenient enough or no one would pay for the higher tiers.
robomartin 1mo ago
It's one thing to be a free user...quite another to be an entitled free user. This is precisely why I do not offer anything for free. I've been there and done it back in the iPhone 3 era with a dozen apps. Learned my lesson quickly. Never again. It was a nightmare. If the product isn't good enough for someone to pay for it (that could be direct user-paid or advertiser supported) it should not exist.
- asadotzler 1mo ago
  If your free tier is marketed as a free tier but really it's just "your first hit is free" like your crack dealer's marketing, then it's a fraud on the user, a scam to get you hooked and paying. I am not an entitled user for thinking a free tier designed to provide half the answer and make me pay for the second half is a scam from an evil corporation and to call that out. Also, it is intended to be supported by ads, so it fits your ideal product description quite well despite being a scam.
  - robomartin 1mo ago
    > "your first hit is free" like your crack dealer's marketing Oh, please. Don't use it then. Simple. Sign of entitlement: You get something of value for free, bitch about limitations and make-up bogus reasons to continue using the product without paying. If it is of value, use it and pay for it. If it isn't, do not use it and you have nothing to worry about. You are bitching about having access to untold billions of dollars of infrastructure and a massive amount of work from people who have lives and families FOR FREE. Get a grip dude. I use it for work, extensively, and I gladly pay for the services from a number of AI providers. I would gladly pay double. It's the no-brainer of the century: I can do months of work in weeks or less for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per month. I was talking to someone the other day who shares their Netflix account for four other families. Same thing, although, in this case, it's not entitlement, it's theft. They are both versions of the tragedy of the commons in various ways.
    - ragequittah 1mo ago
      Most of the stuff I use is free and excellent. Linux, Firefox, libreoffice, xcp-ng, bottles, steam, playnite, opnsense, docker, dockhand, immich, freshrss, obsidian, tailscale, calibre, caddy, docker, pi-hole, signal, audiobookshelf I could probably keep going for a long while. I'm very glad most good software creators I've come across do not have your mindset.
      - robomartin 1mo ago

samsolomon 1mo ago

Honestly, given the price 5.6 Luna is pretty fantastic. I replaced GPT 4.1 mini in several projects. It's also 50% cheaper if you only need it to run sometime in the next 24 hours.

MarkMarine 1mo ago
Flex tier is just as cheap but you don't need to deal with batching or waiting. I see it completing in about ~3x-10x the latency of normal calls, so in seconds. You can always route back to regular if you're getting 429'd on flex too. Flex is also easier to get caching to work, there is a little futzing around with OAI's implicit caching but if you do the upfront work you can get haiku quality responses with caching in close to realtime for 1/7th the cost and you don't need to design a polling loop to check for batch completions
electroglyph 1mo ago
yep, agreed. little bit smarter than deepseek 4 flash, but a little bit worse at tool calls.

throwaway473825 1mo ago

I think the main competitor to OpenAI's free tier is Google Search's AI Overview powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite. OpenAI's free tier needs to be notably better than that for people to bother. There's also Gemini 3.6 Flash with a generous free tier.

stephbook 1mo ago
I'm getting all my questions (3-10 each evening) answered by "Gemini Pro Extended" in the free tier, sometimes with PDFs or photos attached. I wouldn't bother with anything "free" below that, unless I'm agentic coding or something.
- dotancohen 1mo ago
  Are you certain they are the correct answers? No other AI tool halucinations so confidently for me as does Gemini. And I get them across so many topics.
  - stephbook 1mo ago
    Yes, but I do instruct it to give me the explanations. Maybe that helps.
  - subscribed 1mo ago
    Also had a terrible experience with Gemini with codibg: it would just show me trimmed diff (to show the changes it made), then........ commit the actually trimmed contents to the original files, discarding everything that was in between.

lxgr 1mo ago

> So 5.6 Luna is just their next version of what they used to call 5.5 instant tier I wonder if this means that Luna is more, uhm, "free tier like" in its responses? The "Instant"/"Chat" models have a pretty particular vibe.