For Safety, or Their Own Safety? My Frustrations with OpenAI

I’m now totally disappointed and annoyed with OpenAI.

I’ve been a paid user of ChatGPT Plus ever since they released it three years ago. $20 per month is the most expensive subscription I’ve ever bought in my life. The price used to be worth it, but obviously it isn’t anymore.

OpenAI is well known for censoring—they try to censor any word that might get them in trouble. But to be honest, the censorship system has become unbearable since GPT-5 was released.

While I chose GPT-5 Instant, it sometimes goes through a mandatory, unskippable “thinking” process. I didn’t understand at first why they force this “thinking” process, given that I’m already a paid user and chose the Instant mode, obviously someone who doesn’t want to waste time.

But after browsing hundreds of Reddit posts, I found out that it’s part of the censorship system. Whenever the system “thinks” that you might have an “emotional problem”—which even includes using daily words like “knife”—it forces you into the thinking-mini model to ensure you don’t have “mental health issues”.

Obviously, the system has never actually stopped anyone with mental health issues from committing suicide, and I don’t have mental issues, of course. But it’s driving normal users nuts, and might’ve caused mental health issues among normal users like us.

I won’t stop subscribing—for ChatGPT is the only product that’s anywhere near fulfilling my needs—but OpenAI has given me every reason to hate them. They’ve never listened to suggestions, and they will continue ignoring them until a real substitute comes and kills OpenAI.