I also scoffed at the ChatGPT $200 Pro plan back then.

Back when coding for me still meant copy-paste from the web version, it was only worth the $20/month for me.

They only added the $100 Pro plan in April during GPT 5.4 times.

Today I happily pay $400/month for Codex and Claude Code.

>1) Back then, even as a free user you'd be able to use the strongest model (even if with tight limits). Now, you need to pay to use Sol, and you need to pay to use Opus or Fable. It does seem fairly premium in that sense. Idk about 5.6 Luna, but the previous Instant was really bad, even for very casual users. It would hallucinate non stop.

This is kind of what I'm saying though. Bottom has fallen out, differentiation is just can you be much more premium than the competition. Currently that remains unanswered.

EDIT: I'm basing this off the assumption that for chat, premium is not a point of differentiation at all. For coding/analysis, it is.