AFAIK the only info about the (lack of) release of o3 comes from this tweet—and it does seem like o3 will be available explicitly via the API. I think it’s what you say—pricing causing bad PR. It seems that even for pro users, if you use o1 pro too much they will silently switch you to using o3 mini without telling you even if you select o1 pro. So I think they want to continue doing this while not looking so bad doing it.
AFAIK the only info about the (lack of) release of o3 comes from this tweet—and it does seem like o3 will be available explicitly via the API.
I think it’s what you say—pricing causing bad PR. It seems that even for pro users, if you use o1 pro too much they will silently switch you to using o3 mini without telling you even if you select o1 pro.
So I think they want to continue doing this while not looking so bad doing it.