I am posting this separately because my earlier reply was in the rate-limit discussion thread, which had been active for about two weeks. After my reply, the only response that followed was off-topic, and the thread was closed a few hours later. That left me with no real opportunity to bring the discussion back to the actual issue, so I want to restate my point clearly on its own.
My point is not about workflow optimization. My point is about the fairness of the current Codex usage model in ChatGPT Plus for honest weekend open-source use. It is very important to me not just to post this, but to be heard, understood, taken seriously, and answered.
I use Codex for my private open-source work, not for my job. I usually work on that project once a week, on weekends, in one or two longer sessions.
At work, I use a company-paid AI coding subscription (in my case, Copilot). But I cannot use company-paid tools for my private project, and I do not want to blur that boundary. I think that boundary matters. Company resources should be used for company work, and personal resources for personal open-source work.
The problem is that the current session budgeting for Codex in ChatGPT Plus seems to favor many smaller sessions spread across the week. That is the opposite of how I use Codex. I do not need many small sessions. I need one or two substantial sessions for my private open-source project.
For example, I started working at around 7 p.m. After less than three hours, I had already used the amount I could use within one session window, and the next window only opened at midnight. In practice, that means the model forces a two-hour interruption in the middle of an evening session and then pushes me into the night if I want to continue.
At that point, the official alternatives are not really good solutions. I can buy additional credits, or I can continue local work with an API key on usage-based pricing. But if I need to do that regularly just to keep one or two substantial weekend sessions viable, then ChatGPT Plus no longer fits my actual use case in any reasonable way.
As a result, the next viable subscription step for my use case is ChatGPT Pro. But ChatGPT Pro costs five times as much as ChatGPT Plus. So because I keep the boundary between work and private use, and because I use Codex in a concentrated but entirely legitimate way, I am effectively pushed toward a plan that costs five times as much.
That is the part I find especially hard to accept. I am not asking for free usage. I am not asking to stretch or abuse a company subscription. I am doing the honest thing, and the result is that I am being penalized for it.
From my perspective, this is not “more flexibility.” It is a pricing change that makes one specific kind of legitimate use much worse: serious private open-source work done honestly, but only once a week. In practice, it turns honest separation between work and private use into forced overpayment.
Does it feel right?