At present, non-premium users of ChatGPT face a significant hurdle: when encountering a custom GPT link, they have no practical way to understand its specific functionalities or assess its value without opting into a paid subscription. This gap in the user experience makes it challenging for them to justify a subscription, as the real utility of these GPTs can only be gauged through direct interaction.
To address this, I propose a user-centric solution: Why not allow non-premium users a limited number of trial interactions—say, three messages—with each custom GPT ? This approach would provide a firsthand experience of the GPT’s capabilities, enabling users to make an informed decision on whether to subscribe.
Such a feature could be a game-changer. It would empower users with the knowledge they need to decide on premium subscriptions and could potentially increase OpenAI’s user base by converting satisfied trial users.
It’s a good idea and something OpenAI should consider, IMO. But I see massive obstacles trying to avoid users from getting access to GPT-4 for free via this approach.
As a constructive suggestion:
You can share links to conversations with Custom GPTs now. This should help to showcase some features. Otherwise good old marketing presentations should suffice to communicate the value to your customers.
To further refine my proposal and address concerns about potential overuse of the trial system, I suggest that OpenAI could implement a cap on the number of different GPT models a non-premium user can trial each month. This addition could prevent misuse of the trial feature while still offering a fair opportunity for users to explore and understand the diverse capabilities of various GPT models.
I think it’s sometimes missed just how large the free GPT userbase is, even a small number of free users making use of a limited number of trails runs per month could potentially put several times the current load on the servers, I think the only way to make something like this feasible would be a rolling limited number of users being given a limited number of interactions, the upshot of that is… that’s a lot of work… I see the potentials of it, but the practicalities favour the status quo.
I agree with the problem statement.
As a GPT builder I would like to have a way to take my GPT and put it on my website and have some way of allowing anyone (not just Plus subscribers) to try it.
Of course OpenAI wants people to become subscribers… hence the whole revenue sharing idea.
Maybe some sort of micropayment would be better. Prepaid. Top up your account and then you get x invocations.