Good points. Though GPT 5.5 Instant does beat out 5.6 Luna non-thinking 34 to 27 on Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.[1][2] This could mean it is optimised for non-reasoning perfomance. So even if beaten on cost and performance, it could still be on the pareto frontier for speed.
It probably costs them a substantial amount of money everyday to not replace Instant with Luna, and the people who want larger models will upgrade regardless of whether they get Instant or Luna on the free tier. It is unlikely the amount of people upgrading just to have latest models would be enough to offset the costs.
It probably costs them a substantial amount of money everyday to not replace Instant with Luna, and the people who want larger models will upgrade regardless of whether they get Instant or Luna on the free tier. It is unlikely the amount of people upgrading just to have latest models would be enough to offset the costs.
[1]https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/gpt-5-6-luna-non-reason... [2]https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/gpt-5-5-instant-05-26