alt Hacker NewsYou're using the Research model that isn't available to Free users. As a pupil myself, I can vouch for the fact that nobody is using the Research models here.
Even if a pupil does pay, they will either be too lazy to wait the nearly 10 minutes it takes for the AI to do its research, or they actually care about getting good grades and therefore won't outsource their research to AI.
You can replicate on the free tier. You should try it. I'm just pointing out that the loudest anti-ai voices often either haven't used the models at all or are basing their bad opinions on outdated versions. Any opinion made about ChatGPT with GPT 3.5 is basically irrelevant at this point.