ChatGPT: To pay or not to pay

Like many of you folks out there I find ChatGPT to be indispensable. It's a great virtual assistant. Now only if it could do my taxes and house chores that would be next level. Well, that's a pipe dream, so let's move back into the present. I have been using ChatGPT for well over a year. I was using version 3.5 (the free version) and was pretty happy with it. Then while chatting with some folks, one of them said they had signed up for Paid ChatGPT. That got me curious, as to what I may be missing out on, so I signed up also. It's 20 bucks a month. Not bad seeing, unlike my kids who pay a bundle for every streaming channel on earth.

It's been a couple of months since I signed up and I just wanted to share my experience with it. ChatGPT Plus or 4.0 depending on how you refer to it, has been working flawlessly. I don't have any complaints but there again in the back of my mind, it does occasionally bug me, "Is this experience that much better than 3.5?", "Is it better than Google's Gemini?" "is it really worth it?"

Here are the supposed benefits of 4.0

• Enhanced Performance: Paid plans unlock access to GPT-4, the latest and most advanced version of the language model. This translates to faster response times, improved accuracy, and a deeper understanding of complex prompts.
• Priority Access & Stability: Free tiers can experience congestion during peak hours. Upgrading ensures you get through the queue faster and enjoy uninterrupted service, crucial for meeting deadlines.
• Creative Powerhouse: Paid plans often bundle access to DALL-E, the image generation AI. This opens a world of possibilities for crafting visually compelling content and presentations.

In practice, it doesn't feel any faster, maybe it is. Somehow I feel like I am echoing my grown kids and that's not healthy. They used to complain about how slow AT&T was for the Internet. When I moved from AT&T which had up to 100Mb/s to Xfinity supposedly up to 1000 (ie Gigabit), they thanked me and then said no thanks, it doesn't feel any faster. Kids!

The other cool feature you get is DALL-E integrated with the package. I hadn't tried it until now. It's nice having one user interface to access both tools, but so far I have not been too impressed. DALL-E is very slow and usually limits itself to creating one image at a time.

For image generation, my preference is still to go and use Leonardo.AI and Playground.AI. The interface is a lot more user-friendly. The conversational interface of ChatGPT to create images just isn't for me and people who love a real dashboard.

As with most things your experience may be different, so if you want go ahead and give it a try. For me, if I can remember to cancel my subscription, I will. Until then upwards, onwards.