During my initial interactions with ChatGPT Plus, I was not fully convinced that OpenAI’s $20-a-month subscription was worth it. While it was quite fun to test the upgraded chatbot powered by GPT-4, the free version seemed good enough for most prompts. I’m not a software developer who needs a deft coding assistant; I’m a nerd who uses chatbots to have entertaining conversations with artificial intelligence and brainstorm a little.

On May 12, OpenAI announced that users who pay for ChatGPT Plus would be able to access beta versions of its…