5 ms·

"During this period, the company also reset users’ weekly usage early on several occasions to celebrate milestones" Such a casino vibe.

by phyzome 1mo ago

F7F7F7 1mo ago
Both OpenAI and Anthropic use a lot of casino/slot machine mechanics in their TUIs and Apps so likely intentional.
- algoth1 1mo ago
  When there’s billions involved everything is intentional
- TomJansen 1mo ago
  Do you have any examples of this? I am not sure if I understand what you mean
  - derwiki 1mo ago
    I think the whole nature of agentic programming is variable reward: kick off a bunch of prompts, obsessively check “which one nailed it??” Or at least I get a dopamine hit when the agents notifies me that it’s done with its turn.
  - pelagicAustral 1mo ago
    I don't really know if really fits the description, but the whole effort (`\effort`) gate is pretty on point. I mean, you can go up to Ultracode which takes over the whole bottom portion of the terminal with a shiny glow, Ultracode for sure give a lot of "up the ante" vibes...
  - matheusmoreira 1mo ago
    Timers. Such as these five hour and seven day limits. If you see any sort of timer anywhere, you are in a Skinner's box simulator. You are being subjected to positive and negative reinforcement via the reward schedule. This is habit forming.
    - hzhshdjej 1mo ago
      explains the junkie behavior from the boosters. up all night just one more prompt and what did they build? well it's almost done it's like nitrous oxide, you're sure to have that epiphany with just one more pull
      - matheusmoreira 1mo ago
        It's definitely addictive and it does create problems. The timer only starts when we message a model, and we always want the timer to be counting down. So if a timer resets at 3 AM, we are incentivized wake up at 3 AM and start something just to get the timer running. Mercifully, unlike actual video games, automating this isn't cheating. The existence of timer resets also incentivizes us to spend our usage as quickly as possible. No way to know when Tibo's gonna push his reset button. Ideally, we want to be at zero percent remaining when he does. Any usage left before reset is usage that was left on the table. The new 5h limits will make this much more difficult, and this is probably by design. Heh, it's just like my mobile gaming days... Deal with this long enough and eventually you can see the game mechanics like Neo sees the Matrix. Never thought I'd fall into this rabbit hole again. I disagree about the "what did they build" angle though. These subscriptions are providing me with truly absurd amounts of value. Gacha games deserve to be mercilessly botted to death, but AI is world changing technology.
        arational 1mo ago
        Considering the model was trained both on coding and addition design, it therefore follows that the coding harness design may inherit some addiction bit. This could be an emergent issue, or just a pure coincidence.
      - frisbee6152 1mo ago
        I’ve switched to a higher tier plan where I don’t hit limits and have found it less habit forming and more pleasant. I’m not going to hit the limit anyway, so there’s less reason to alter my behavior to match quotas. The end result is that I’m considerably under quota every week, so I’m sure margins are comfortable for OpenAI. But it means my work doesn’t get interrupted, and I can use heavier models and fast mode liberally, because I’m not going to hit quota anyway, which means my sessions are shorter and more productive. It’s hard to get anything “done done” when you get a quota limit, just as you’re getting into a good flow.
  - svachalek 1mo ago
    It's a little more like App Store "gems" imo, with some clarity and honesty removed. Pay for "usage" that disappears arbitrarily: coded that bug fix for you, 3% usage consumed. Would you like to upgrade your plan to pro for "more" usage or max for "much more" usage? Buy pro max for "most" usage and access to our latest model, until we revoke it 15 minutes from now.
    - matheusmoreira 1mo ago
      Yeah, it's a lot like that. I've been running statistics on my local codex transcripts in order to try and figure out how many API credits are included in the subscription. So far my results are hovering around 3k credits for Plus and 15k credits for Pro 5x, which is aligned with what they advertise.
- moustache_hn 1mo ago
  can you explain this
tom1337 1mo ago
also it sounds like users benefit but they mostly don't. resets mostly benefitted OpenAI and only gave users few additionals hours.
palmotea 1mo ago
>> During this period, the company also reset users’ weekly usage early on several occasions to celebrate milestones, including adding another million active users across the two (now unified) platforms. > Such a casino vibe. No no no! It means we're all in it together! Feel the parasocial vibes!
vatsachak 1mo ago
Hey I work in the casino industry and we have regulations!
bpodgursky 1mo ago
The vibe was people goofing around on Twitter. There's one guy making the call and the reset is kind of a meme.
bko 1mo ago
I think it's great that oai resets users limits. What is this complaint? Free drinks? Keep customers happy? Reward your heaviest users? Casino vibes
- vatsachak 1mo ago
  I think there can be many complaints about large scale AI providers but given that large companies are now pushing for local models it seems that we are luckily avoiding the situation where AI is a utility
- jchw 1mo ago
  Well, you know what they say. The first one's free.
  - bko 1mo ago
    When did hn turn into reddit?
    - jchw 1mo ago
      See the note at the bottom here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- wccrawford 1mo ago
  I've seen a lot of people who seem to think it's inevitable that they'll get resets, making them more likely to over-spend early because they'll get a reset anyhow. It could leave them out of availability later when they need it.
- venzaspa 1mo ago
  I used to think it was pretty great but now it just means you can't plan your usage across the week. It's a slightly entitled complaint but when you 'waste' 80% of your remaining usage because you get a reset you weren't expecting, there's a ping of disappointment there.
mannanj 1mo ago
Yeah. I switched to codex 1.5 months ago to try it, and for some reason the "vibe" kept me here. It was really the unpredictable rewards from the constant resets though. I am not convinced it's a better product or that sol + any combination of luna is better than Claude. I'll be switching back.
qsort 1mo ago
They now give out resets you can choose when to use, but with a "best before" date. With Anthropic you don't even know what model you'll have access to next week. A few months ago I wanted to try a subscription to Gemini but I couldn't figure out how to give them money. The other one thinks he's Mecha Hitler. To an extent I get it, this is not like a normal SaaS where you just buy seats, but their commercial offerings, especially B2C ones, feel like complete amateur hour. If they were selling literally anything else I'd have ran for the hills a long time ago.
matheusmoreira 1mo ago
It's the gacha of software development.

"During this period, the company also reset users’ weekly usage early on several occasions to celebrate milestones" Such a casino vibe.

by phyzome 1mo ago

"During this period, the company also reset users’ weekly usage early on several occasions to celebrate milestones" Such a casino vibe.

F7F7F7 1mo ago

Both OpenAI and Anthropic use a lot of casino/slot machine mechanics in their TUIs and Apps so likely intentional.

algoth1 1mo ago
When there’s billions involved everything is intentional
TomJansen 1mo ago
Do you have any examples of this? I am not sure if I understand what you mean
- derwiki 1mo ago
  I think the whole nature of agentic programming is variable reward: kick off a bunch of prompts, obsessively check “which one nailed it??” Or at least I get a dopamine hit when the agents notifies me that it’s done with its turn.
- pelagicAustral 1mo ago
  I don't really know if really fits the description, but the whole effort (`\effort`) gate is pretty on point. I mean, you can go up to Ultracode which takes over the whole bottom portion of the terminal with a shiny glow, Ultracode for sure give a lot of "up the ante" vibes...
- matheusmoreira 1mo ago
  Timers. Such as these five hour and seven day limits. If you see any sort of timer anywhere, you are in a Skinner's box simulator. You are being subjected to positive and negative reinforcement via the reward schedule. This is habit forming.
  - hzhshdjej 1mo ago
    explains the junkie behavior from the boosters. up all night just one more prompt and what did they build? well it's almost done it's like nitrous oxide, you're sure to have that epiphany with just one more pull
    - matheusmoreira 1mo ago
      It's definitely addictive and it does create problems. The timer only starts when we message a model, and we always want the timer to be counting down. So if a timer resets at 3 AM, we are incentivized wake up at 3 AM and start something just to get the timer running. Mercifully, unlike actual video games, automating this isn't cheating. The existence of timer resets also incentivizes us to spend our usage as quickly as possible. No way to know when Tibo's gonna push his reset button. Ideally, we want to be at zero percent remaining when he does. Any usage left before reset is usage that was left on the table. The new 5h limits will make this much more difficult, and this is probably by design. Heh, it's just like my mobile gaming days... Deal with this long enough and eventually you can see the game mechanics like Neo sees the Matrix. Never thought I'd fall into this rabbit hole again. I disagree about the "what did they build" angle though. These subscriptions are providing me with truly absurd amounts of value. Gacha games deserve to be mercilessly botted to death, but AI is world changing technology.
      - arational 1mo ago
        Considering the model was trained both on coding and addition design, it therefore follows that the coding harness design may inherit some addiction bit. This could be an emergent issue, or just a pure coincidence.
    - frisbee6152 1mo ago
      I’ve switched to a higher tier plan where I don’t hit limits and have found it less habit forming and more pleasant. I’m not going to hit the limit anyway, so there’s less reason to alter my behavior to match quotas. The end result is that I’m considerably under quota every week, so I’m sure margins are comfortable for OpenAI. But it means my work doesn’t get interrupted, and I can use heavier models and fast mode liberally, because I’m not going to hit quota anyway, which means my sessions are shorter and more productive. It’s hard to get anything “done done” when you get a quota limit, just as you’re getting into a good flow.
- svachalek 1mo ago
  It's a little more like App Store "gems" imo, with some clarity and honesty removed. Pay for "usage" that disappears arbitrarily: coded that bug fix for you, 3% usage consumed. Would you like to upgrade your plan to pro for "more" usage or max for "much more" usage? Buy pro max for "most" usage and access to our latest model, until we revoke it 15 minutes from now.
  - matheusmoreira 1mo ago
    Yeah, it's a lot like that. I've been running statistics on my local codex transcripts in order to try and figure out how many API credits are included in the subscription. So far my results are hovering around 3k credits for Plus and 15k credits for Pro 5x, which is aligned with what they advertise.
moustache_hn 1mo ago
can you explain this

tom1337 1mo ago

also it sounds like users benefit but they mostly don't. resets mostly benefitted OpenAI and only gave users few additionals hours.

palmotea 1mo ago

>> During this period, the company also reset users’ weekly usage early on several occasions to celebrate milestones, including adding another million active users across the two (now unified) platforms. > Such a casino vibe. No no no! It means we're all in it together! Feel the parasocial vibes!

vatsachak 1mo ago

Hey I work in the casino industry and we have regulations!

bpodgursky 1mo ago

The vibe was people goofing around on Twitter. There's one guy making the call and the reset is kind of a meme.

bko 1mo ago

I think it's great that oai resets users limits. What is this complaint? Free drinks? Keep customers happy? Reward your heaviest users? Casino vibes

vatsachak 1mo ago
I think there can be many complaints about large scale AI providers but given that large companies are now pushing for local models it seems that we are luckily avoiding the situation where AI is a utility
jchw 1mo ago
Well, you know what they say. The first one's free.
- bko 1mo ago
  When did hn turn into reddit?
  - jchw 1mo ago
    See the note at the bottom here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
wccrawford 1mo ago
I've seen a lot of people who seem to think it's inevitable that they'll get resets, making them more likely to over-spend early because they'll get a reset anyhow. It could leave them out of availability later when they need it.
venzaspa 1mo ago
I used to think it was pretty great but now it just means you can't plan your usage across the week. It's a slightly entitled complaint but when you 'waste' 80% of your remaining usage because you get a reset you weren't expecting, there's a ping of disappointment there.

mannanj 1mo ago

Yeah. I switched to codex 1.5 months ago to try it, and for some reason the "vibe" kept me here. It was really the unpredictable rewards from the constant resets though. I am not convinced it's a better product or that sol + any combination of luna is better than Claude. I'll be switching back.

qsort 1mo ago

They now give out resets you can choose when to use, but with a "best before" date. With Anthropic you don't even know what model you'll have access to next week. A few months ago I wanted to try a subscription to Gemini but I couldn't figure out how to give them money. The other one thinks he's Mecha Hitler. To an extent I get it, this is not like a normal SaaS where you just buy seats, but their commercial offerings, especially B2C ones, feel like complete amateur hour. If they were selling literally anything else I'd have ran for the hills a long time ago.

matheusmoreira 1mo ago

It's the gacha of software development.