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Comment by ridgeguy | Hacker News Reader

I have (rather, had) a paid subscription to ChatGPT. I work at my home in the Sierra foothills, and on alternate weeks in my office in San Jose.

Last month, I used ChatGPT while in SJ. I needed a function that's only available to paying customers, and which had worked well from my home. ChatGPT refused to recognize me as a paid-up customer. I had correct login creds + ancillary identifying info, but no go. Over the course of about half an hour, ChatGPT told me in several different ways it wouldn't (not couldn't) attempt to verify my customer status.

I'm now a former ChatGPT customer.

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Weird. I’ve traveled across Europe and used ChatGPT paid account from my phone and my laptop in multiple countries on various connections. Mobile data, home WiFi, hotel WiFi, coffee shops, etc. I always get an email to confirm the login with a code but they’ve never denied my login or prevented me from using my account thankfully.

I would be surprised if bad customer experience handling were the reason OpenAI loses to Google. It's not like Google is known for their customer experience.

Of course Google is mature enough that this particular failure mode probably won’t happen, but there may be other more concerning failure modes for individuals who are reliant on a broad swath of Google services.

Diversity of tech companies is an important consideration for me, one that definitely outweighs one-time issues, especially in a field where credible competition is limited.

This is exactly the kind of failure Google is notorious for. Google has put me through their login purgatory multiple times where the only solution was to wait many days and try the same steps again until it works. I think it would be much easier to get this resolved with OpenAI than with Google.

I'm not trying to defend Google (shudder!), just trying to be helpful:

- Enabling 2fa in my accounts has solved this problem for me

- I hear that hardware security tokens are even better to get Google to not worry that you're an imposter, but I haven't done that myself

How do you handle family obligations and a super commute like that?

Super commuting is a thing since this whole RTO shit show happened. A lot of companies use it as excuse to lay-off.

As someone who does it, it depends on motivations. If the paycheck you bring in with the commute is more than what you’ll make by getting a new job, your kids are semi independent, your partner can hold the fort down Monday to Friday it’s doable.

It sucks but it’s doable

My commute is every other week, so it's not terrible. I drive to SJ Sunday night, stay in a hotel that's 5 minutes from my office, then drive home Friday afternoon.

It averages 3.25hrs one way, or about 13 hrs/month, given my every other week schedule. It's a little tiring, but doable.

I mean, cool story bro.

So you experienced a bug, which happens on software. I've traveled a lot and have never had an issue with my ChatGPT subscription. I'm not doubting you, but I don't think your anecdote adds much to the conversation of OpenAI vs Google.

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