They're in a tough place with respect to pricing. Qwen3 and DeepSeek's latest local models are too good and are practically free -- so if they try and jack up pricing to a level that ensures profitability, it won't work, as they're simply going to lose too many customers.

There's a mechanism here similar to a Laffer Curve: Charge too much, they lose; charge too little, they lose. OAI needs to strike a delicate balance vs. surging low-cost competition.