GPT Business Model (Open Letter to OpenAI Team)

Community
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Dear OpenAI Team,

I’m writing as a developer working with the GPT Builder tool, and I wanted to provide feedback on the current business model. While I appreciate the power and potential of creating custom GPTs, I’ve encountered a significant challenge that may discourage broader adoption and innovation within the community.

Key Concern: Developer-Centric Billing Model
Currently, the costs for every interaction with a GPT built through the platform are charged to the developer, regardless of who uses the model. This creates a major barrier, especially for independent developers or small teams who want to create GPTs for public use. The more successful or widely adopted a GPT becomes, the more financial burden it places on the developer. This doesn’t align with the principle that users who derive value from a product should pay for it.

Why This Model is Problematic:

Disincentive for Innovation: Developers take on the financial risk, making it difficult to build and scale public-facing GPTs that might otherwise provide significant value.
Barriers to Entry: Independent developers and small businesses may avoid building custom GPTs due to cost concerns, limiting the ecosystem’s growth.
Developer Sustainability: Developers are incentivized to keep their GPT usage low or restricted, which reduces the potential for large-scale, innovative public projects.

A Better Approach: Shift Costs to End Users
I believe a more sustainable and developer-friendly model would charge end users for their interactions with custom GPTs, while allowing developers to set usage limits or pricing tiers. This would create a natural value exchange where users pay for the value they receive from the GPT, rather than placing the financial burden on the developers.

Proposed Solutions:

  1. User-Pay Model: Charge users directly for their interactions with GPTs, and allow developers to set their own pricing. OpenAI could manage the billing process and take a small percentage of the revenue, similar to app stores.
  2. Freemium Model with API Caps: Offer free access to developers up to a reasonable usage threshold. This would encourage experimentation and allow developers to reach users without immediate financial burden.
  3. Revenue Share: OpenAI could implement a revenue-sharing model where developers and OpenAI split the income generated from paid interactions with the GPT. This ensures that developers are not left covering the costs of their success.
  4. Sponsorship or Subsidy: For public GPTs that have educational, social, or communal value, OpenAI could explore sponsorship or subsidy models to support them, while still allowing developers to benefit from their work.

By shifting the cost model in this way, OpenAI could encourage more developers to build, promote, and improve custom GPTs without the fear of unsustainable costs. This would greatly expand the ecosystem and the diversity of GPTs available to the public.

Thank you for considering this feedback. I hope OpenAI continues to refine its approach to better support developers and foster a vibrant, innovative community.

*Written with AI based on my prompts and signed with my approval.

Onward & Upward,

Bess Pascarelli

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A “GPT”, which is solely a customization done within ChatGPT(while GPT originally meant an AI technology), is completely powered and paid for by OpenAI and a ChatGPT users’ fixed monthly account subscription. Even limited free use is available.

There is no further cost to you. You are helping to enhance OpenAI’s company profile when you create content within the ChatGPT consumer product. A GPT cannot be used outside of ChatGPT: OpenAI’s own web site and app.

It is API products, where you write your own code and send requests to a data backend, and can develop applications outside of ChatGPT, that one must pay for the language data to an AI model. An example of using the API might be to place a tech support helper on your company web site.

So the only risk that may cost you is if you connect additional AI powered resources of your own through GPT actions. You’d have to satisfy the on-demand computation costs of any external resources when using your own servers to fulfill them by GPT usage.

*Written by myself with no AI oversight.

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Thanks for the explainer. My original understanding was that I would be charged for posting a publicly available GPT in the GPT store. Thankfully this is not the case, although they still ask you to link a credit card and deposit funds which seems odd for a free model. I guess they expect that eventually you will create an API to a 3rd party service and be billed for rate usage then.