Since Open AI introduced the latest ChatGPT 4o (omni), they also offers most of its features also to the free members. But that was not case prior that.

And when I lost the Plus membership few weeks ago (due being not charged for the membership), I was supposed to see the GPT 4o anyway, but with more limited number of interactions in particular period of time.

But, what I saw in menu, was only GPT 3.5 and that was what the free users was able to have prior that last GPT 4o, which is supposed to be available last weeks also to free members (with more limitations).

And since I often his the limits of using GPT 4o, which become not available for some times then (from few minutes to 2 or 3 hours max, as I noticed) and then I can still use GPT 4 or GPT 3.5, I was then pretty limited with that free membership.

Upgraded version to Plus had also many other features, which free members couldn't have (prior last GPT 4o, which can also free users use now, with more limits).

As for coding, also using the GPT store, etc..

Most of this became available to the free users recently too. So if it happens again that I would have only free membership, I can just hope now, that I won't be too limited in use.

Btw. I use ChatGPT in various ways, so if I can create practically unlimited images (it stops me only when I create many dozens of images in let say half hour or an hour, but then I have to wait usually only few minutes to create more), I think it's still cheaper than if I would need to pay additional $10 or $15 monthly to get one another AI image generator, where I would be maybe even more limited in number of images (or waiting time).