It was an obvious decision product wise even if it may not appease some devs.
Regular users just see incrementing numbers, why would they want to use 3 or 4 if there is a 5? This is how people who aren't entrenched in AI think.
Ask some of your friends what the difference is between models and some will have no clue that currently some of the 3 models are better than 4 models, or they'll not understand what the "o" means at all. And some think why would I ever use mini?
My girlfriend when asked about models: What do you mean, I just ask ChatGPT?
I think people here vastly underestimate how many people just type questions into the chatbox, and that's it. When you think about the product from that perspective, this release is probably a huge jump for many people who have never used anything but the default model. Whereas, if you've been using o3 all along, this is just another nice incremental improvement.
It is frankly ridiculous to assume anyone would think that 4o is in anyway worse then o3. I don't understand why these companies suck at basic marketing this hard, like what is with all these .5s and mini and other shit names. Just increment the fucking number or if you are embarrassed by having to increase the number all the time just use year/month. Then you can have different flavors like "light and fast" or "deep thinker" and of course just the regular "GPT X"
Regular users just see incrementing numbers, why would they want to use 3 or 4 if there is a 5? This is how people who aren't entrenched in AI think.
Ask some of your friends what the difference is between models and some will have no clue that currently some of the 3 models are better than 4 models, or they'll not understand what the "o" means at all. And some think why would I ever use mini?