I think this will be a pretty impactful moment for OpenAI. I mainly use ChatGPT and use the free plan, so I expect to start seeing these ads. If they become too annoying, I have no problem moving to Claude/Gemini. Sure I have stuck to ChatGPT, but I wouldn't say that I am too sticky of a customer. I personally think they are doing it sooner than they should (which probably points to internal financial struggles as they seek to go public) and will erode their active users. There is simply too many easy alternatives. It's not like Netflix where if you are annoyed with ads and don't want to pay for a higher tier, you're more stuck. Yes there are other streaming services, but you can't get the same content.

> wouldn't say that I am too sticky of a customer.

You definitely aren't too sticky a customer - you aren't even a customer to begin with!

> I mainly use ChatGPT and use the free plan

> Sure I have stuck to ChatGPT, but I wouldn't say that I am too sticky of a customer.

From your description, you're not actually a customer at all because you use the free plan.

If you won't tolerate ads and you won't pay for services, it's actually best for their business if you go to a different provider.

you really believe that gemini by google will not run ads?

https://arxiv.org/html/2512.03975v1

The free tier users that will not move to a paid tier aren't the users they will miss. It's only obvious that free tier products get ads. Even Claude will have them within a year or two.

Free tiers for Claude and Gemini will also have ads soon. It's a matter of when, not if.

there's literally no other provider with a good free tier?

(other than aistudio which i wouldn't use even if i were forced to, laggy af!)