So you are doing something like 400 queries a month and the aggregate value of all those responses is less than $20 to you? I've got to ask, why bother querying it at all?
Actually, Google search has an ARPU of ~$256 per year [1] -- i.e. they're monetizing your eyeballs for about $20 a month. I applaud OpenAI: Please keep the service paid & ad-free. Thanks!
Stupid? If you had no access to a free search engine would you spend $20 a month on it? I sure would. It is also stupid to think that promoted results aren't a cost for you; if the search provider values it, there must be a cost.
The advertisers on Google would tell you otherwise. You are the product, ads are shown to you and you likely will click on one or more of them. Of course everybody says they don't , but the majority of people do.
Mostly because it's free. But it clearly has some value to me, mostly as an engine for figuring out what terms I _actually_ need to search Google for. And if they offered a tier closer to the amount of value I get from it, I'd probably pay that.
