The release of o3 was a bit of a panic reaction on DeepSeek's unexpected success. They needed to show the world that they still are first in class. However, o3 is much more computationally intensive than 4o is, so probably they are burning a lot of money at the moment. Now, they try to come with a more economically viable response to DeepSeek. Well at least I'm happy that DeepSeek has forced OpenAi to up its game and not sit on new models forever.

It would be pity to loose access to o3 though. (checked this morning, and I still had access)