OpenAI retires GPT-4o and backlash spikes overnight

GPT-4o disappeared from ChatGPT on Feb 13, and the reaction has looked less like a normal product sunset and more like a breakup. OpenAI says it’s basically housekeeping, clearing out older model options and shifting the default experience to GPT-5.2, and it’s also defending the move with a sharp stat, saying only 0.1% of daily users were still actively choosing GPT-4o.

That intensity makes more sense when you see how many users treated 4o as more than a tool. The Guardian describes communities like Reddit and Discord trade prompts the way you’d trade relationship advice. For people feeling isolated or overwhelmed in real life, the model wasn’t a productivity hack; it was a lifeline.

A common complaint is that the new default, GPT-5.2, feels like a different personality wearing the same UI. Users keep saying it’s more cautious, more templated, and more likely to interrupt emotional language with safety friction even when they’re not asking for anything extreme. What they miss isn’t raw capability, it’s warmth and momentum, the sense that a simple prompt could still produce a conversation that felt unusually present.

Then there’s the protest energy, very loud. People are sharing petitions, canceling subscriptions, and trading tips like exporting chats or trying to “force” the old model back through regenerate. And the 0.1% number almost makes it worse, because it lets the company side brush the backlash off as “just a tiny group.” In the biggest mega-threads, that grief has also turned into conspiracy talk, with viral posts claiming Microsoft pushed the Feb 13 deadline to lock people into its ecosystem.

And it isn’t only consumer users taking the hit. A parallel strain of anger comes from developers watching the countdown on 4o API, because they didn’t just chat with 4o, they built apps and persistent personas around its specific tone and emotional nuance. To them, this is more than swapping software versions; it feels like erasing the base their creations were built on.

Before model retirements used to be a technical note, but now tone is part of the product people bond with, and bonds don’t deprecate cleanly. Whether it’s a tiny 0.1% or not, the noise is a warning that the industry still needs to learn how to retire a “vibe” without making it feel personal.