I think a lot of people sign up to chatpt, and then by the time they come to use anything API related the $5 free credit has already expired. I’m getting messages from first time users getting errors about not having any API credit.
This makes it difficult to sign up new users to software if they have to sign up to pay for openai api credit first before they’ve ever tried the tool. Its especially if you are promoting something as free software but they have to sign up for API credit first.
Does it have to expire after 3 months? Could it be 3 months from when they first make an API call, does it have to expire at all? Its better for OpenAI too if more people can try stuff first and then decide.
A year ago, someone creating an account would be doing so just to use OpenAI products that could employ the trial.
With the addition of ChatGPT - using the same account system - many more are dipping their toes in just the chatbot product, creating an account and setting the clock on the trial, and only later discovering that programming for API might be of interest.
“Promoting as free software”? - if it came off that way, that’s a problem. Rather, I think OpenAI should be promoting it as a premium product that costs money to use. The trick is in getting someone “hooked”.
Simply rescinding the free trials for new accounts was tried early August - and didn’t last more than a few days.
Doing some sort of retro correction to put back a trial for those who never made an API call? Then you have unfairness to those who only had one week of experimentation before expiration.
It probably didn’t help that many people (who even admitted here publicly) that they signed up for multiple accounts to get free credits for BYOK tools or other uses…