Temporary issue or best available model has been actually downgraded for free tier users?

Looking for verification, this appears to be the official …

We’ve limited access to our latest models (gpt-5.3-codex and gpt-5.4) to paid subscriptions. This is necessary to ensure capacity for paid subscribers. If you’re on a Free plan, you can still use Codex with other models including gpt-5.2-codex.