OpenAI API Simplifies Tiers, Lowers Grow Bar

This is a small but meaningful developer-experience win: rate-limit friction often appears precisely when a prototype starts looking like a product. Lower spend requirements help bootstrapped teams reach higher throughput sooner; three named stages are easier to understand than five numbered paid tiers; and the change improves capacity access, not token pricing. Developers still need retries, backoff, spend limits, and monitoring because quotas vary by model and project.