Does the free tier really not have access to reasoning models?

That would explain a lot of the terrible AI/LLM takes online.

The free tier of ChatGPT is powered by GPT-5.5 Instant, a non-reasoning version of GPT 5.5.

Also, remember the bulk of AI users are using free models, getting terrible answers, and wondering why people keep saying AI is going to take everybody's jobs away.

Yes. Go to chat.com in an incognito window and ask it the same question that you ask 5.6-sol with thinking max, and compare. Depending on the question there is or is not a huge difference.