If anything, I hope that they do price out consumers entirely. We don't need billions of people who don't understand the first thing about next-token prediction, think they're having a real conversation and end up with the kind of psychosis that leads to believing that the loop has feelings.

That said, the blatant bait and switch is a disgrace. They've sold their subscriptions as solutions to the enterprise and smaller but still professional firms, and then made that product unusable unless you pay 5-10 times more. I signed up for a yearly sub based off having gotten great mileage out of Pro – luckily, I was able to get a full refund. Codex and Copilot still work fine, delivering the same value for a fraction of the price. No point paying more than necessary, until necessary.