As reported by TechCrunch AI, OpenAI's shift to unlimited free text chats is less a gift and more a necessity. The real story is the stratification of 'thinking' itself. By introducing a 'Think' button and a 'thinking slider,' OpenAI is attempting to productize reasoning depth, a metric that arguably remains opaque and subjective.
This could create a confusing user experience where the perceived quality of an answer becomes tied to an adjustable dial rather than the model's inherent capability. The strategy seems designed to upsell users on the promise of better cognition, but the value proposition may hinge on users trusting that the slider does something meaningful—a trust that must be earned, not assumed.