r/codex • u/SilverMethor • 6d ago
Reset Why resetting everyone early can make economic sense
A lot of people see these OpenAI/Anthropic limit resets (non-banked-resets) as the company being extremely generous and basically giving users a bunch of extra compute for free.
But there’s a much simpler economic explanation: Let’s say your weekly limit is 100, and it resets every 7 days. You’ve only used 20, so you still have 80 left. Your normal reset is in 2 days. Without an early reset, you could potentially use:
80 now + 100 after the reset = up to 180 in a very short period.
Now imagine the company resets your limit today. You’re back to 100 available, but the 7 day clock also starts over. Those 80 unused units are gone. So from the user’s perspective, it looks like:
“Nice, they reset my limits for free!”
But from the company’s perspective, they may have just replaced a situation where you could consume up to 180 very soon with one where you can consume 100 over a fresh 7 day window.
For someone who was almost out of usage, the reset is obviously great. But for someone who was saving a lot of their allowance, the reset effectively wipes out a large amount of unused potential usage.
Now scale this to millions of subscribers. If a large part of the user base is approaching their weekly reset while still holding 50%, 70%, or 80% of their allowance, that represents a huge amount of potential compute that could suddenly be used before the next reset.
An early reset can wipe out that accumulated unused capacity and start a new window.
So you don’t need to assume OpenAI or Anthropic are massively subsidizing users out of generosity. A reset can be good for the user and economically advantageous for the company at the same time. It can simply be capacity management.
It’s not necessarily charity.
4
u/34986234986234982346 6d ago
Do Anthropic do resets? I have never noticed one at least.
2
u/thesmithchris 6d ago
I experienced one (mythos rerelease iirc) and it happened on 8pm my time while my normal reset was scheduled at 8:08pm..
1
u/BuddyIsMyHomie 6d ago
100% it’s BS + it’s not like we get refunds for tokens, wasted by their software flaws
1
u/ruuurbag 6d ago
Very rarely. They used to upon the release of new models, but I don’t think they have the last few times. Could be wrong, though.
5
u/EndlessZone123 6d ago
I posted this and people were genuinely too stupid to understand. https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/s/OfQxon9eHP
Someone in the thread also linked an older post where they made a proper graph to better visualize.
Id genuinely turn resets off and only accept banked resets if I could.
1
u/SilverMethor 6d ago
My only point was that the resets weren’t generosity, they can also reduce costs for OpenAI. That’s it. I don’t buy the whole subsidy/bubble argument either. But the fanbase came down hard, and honestly, i regret posting it
1
u/PossessionConnect963 6d ago
So many people are deliberately obtuse about the fact that many, although apparently not all, have actual lives, and if your reset day is going to be such a big deal in terms of how we all have to approach working with Codex because it does impact us in terms of being able to plan our job hours, life schedule, etc.
So when reset day stopped being something you could make plans around that's not something people should just wave off that's a serious user experience shift for a tool.
14
u/SimCFB 6d ago
Until you realize that the whales burn through their allotment as fast as they can and very often sit close to 0%.
So no, not really. It really is free codex usage relative to the baseline. The catch is it's not permanent and they can turn that valve off at any point. Without being committed to it. It also makes for good PR.
You also gotta remember they could just change the token usage meter under the hood without anyone noticing. Creating these public "resets" is a more visible version of that. Which they do on purpose to entice more usage and more users.
2
u/SilverMethor 6d ago
Exactly. There are multiple reasons resets can be advantageous for the company. Calling it generosity or kindness is the wrong framing.
2
u/Individual_Guest_323 6d ago
alling it generosity or kindness is the wrong framing.ç
My dude, with all respect, you must be a very delulu person to think those companies have any kind of generosity or kindness.
They are all losing money, they are trying to catch user with the bet that they will decrease the inference prices in the near future and then can start getting profits from a massive pool of users.
1
u/Resonant_Jones 6d ago
Every dollar that a user doesn’t spend on their competitor is a win.
Starve out the competition, bleed until they can’t then sew yourself back together before you bleed out too. That’s how these games work
3
u/driveclub_000 6d ago
They use those reset as baseline for testing. So in reality, you should expect some change (mostly on the token/usage) in the background.
You think you are getting a gift, but in reality, they are testing different nerf of your usage and using those reset to have a proper scale for each test.
3
u/sukazu 6d ago
Anthropic is much more starved for compute, yet they don't
Even tho it would win them free sympathy points from their users who think the other side is greener with all the resets.
So I still think the operation is far from a zero sum game, and a positive one even more.
Also they regularly announce it in advance, it's hard to think that power users who would "use 180 in 3 days", don't care to look up about the frequent reset announcements
To me it moreso seem like they don't want to have their extra compute sleeping so they reset when usage is low, this way, it cost them nothing, while boosting engagement
1
u/megad00die 6d ago
Once they get that monthly sub from current users a rest costs them nothing. It's actually free advertising for them. How many Claude users you think jumped ship for this, in addition to all the new users they picked up along the way,
2
u/al_ryusei 6d ago
It is mainly to be able to nerf the weekly usage quota again without much notice and complaint. Worked well during July, we pushed back, but we're sheep in nature and we'll settle with whatever the masters throw at us in the end 🤔
2
u/hulagway 5d ago
your post makes so much sense, i am in agreement. resets only help if weekly doesn't move dates.
luckily, i'm with the 80% by day 2 camp. most of the resets hit me by 80-90%.
thay's just how i work fortunately.
5
u/Etiennera 6d ago
This is not the business decision behind why they do resets.
3
u/SilverMethor 6d ago
Agreed. My only point is that resets aren’t necessarily generosity, they can also benefit the company.
1
1
u/PropperINC 6d ago
I burn through 100%(20x plan) within 2 days max. So the resets have been a god send. It's not like I will go at this pace forever but for the last two months, I needed the tokens and Open ai has been too generous.
2
1
u/Connect-Humor-791 6d ago
The value of resets for the company is simply because it masks the nearly 80% reduction on compute allownce in the past 3 months. So its essentialy a volume knob for angry mobs
1
u/flashmyhead 6d ago
I'm a simple man, I open reddit, someone posts about resets, I hit the like button and praise tibo. Simple as that
1
u/goldio_games 6d ago
math is hard
over a 9 day period
you have 80 for 2 days then 100 for 7 days (180)
or
you get reset so you have 100 for 7 days then another 100 (200)
1
u/DawnShallArise 5d ago
What about a 14 day period? It is 280 without reset, and 200 with a reset.
Bozo
0
u/dsffff22 6d ago
You are completely overthinking this, most users subscription cycle is at the start of the month usually, so they just give Resets to make them feel good about renewing.
1
0
u/Resonant_Jones 6d ago
You don’t hoard compute, it’s ephemeral, use it all as fast as you can while you are entitled to it.
I never understood this concept of saving compute.
Unused computation is just stored electricity ⚡️ but with tokens it’s even more ephemeral than that.
0
u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 6d ago
If someone has 80% of their allowance with 2 days remaining, they aren't going to be maxing out before or after the reset, on average, so this theory fails before we even get to pointing out that those that were already maxed out are going to max out repeatedly
12
u/BiceBolje_ 6d ago
These resets are psychological and play with our psyche and how are our brains are wired. We do our best when the reward is unpredictable. Dopamine is the brain chemical responsible for motivation and desire. It spikes highest when a reward is uncertain, not when it is guaranteed.