Change Always Stings
In the classic 90s business book Who Moved My Cheese?, Spencer Johnson tells a simple story about mice and tiny people in a maze to teach lessons about adapting to change. Four characters discover their cheese supply has disappeared. Two mice immediately start searching for new cheese. The two people resist and complain before eventually, one of them learns to embrace change and move forward.
Change always stings, even when it is supposed to be better. One day you are using a tool that fits like your favorite hoodie, worn in all the right spots, a little frayed at the edges. It's yours, quirks and all. Then OpenAI swaps GPT-4o for GPT-5, promising better reasoning, more creativity, and fewer refusals. Suddenly you're wondering why you miss 4o's quirky responses and conversational style. You used to want improvements, remember? But now you miss that specific personality.
People do not just want smarter tools, they want familiar ones. Forced upgrades are not just a shift in capability. They are a gut-level reminder that what you knew is gone. It is not “a better model.” It is “the friend who knew your inside jokes” being replaced by someone who smiles politely but does not get them.
If you think this sounds dramatic, look at this Hacker News thread and the Reddit AMA with Sam Altman. Overnight, people's workflows and relationships with the model were disrupted.
“I was very happy with 4, and I really hate model 5 so far. It is short, cold, and I have to now depict 4’s personality to give it to 5. It was terrible that this happened overnight with no other options.”
“I have been using GPT-4o for a long time and have built a very specific dynamic and workflow with it. After testing GPT-5, I can tell it is an impressive model, but for my use case, it feels different in ways that matter a lot.”
“The subtle tone and personality shaping I have developed over months with 4o does not translate perfectly. It is close, but not the same. I doubt with GPT-5 it ever will be close enough.”
There was so much pushback that Sam Altman said GPT-4o would return for Plus users (at least for a while).
The problem isn’t that we can’t adapt. We are wired to protect what feels like home. When the cheese moves, we do not automatically chase it. We stand there, staring at the empty space where it used to be, hoping it will come back. More than performance metrics, this is about the bond we build with the tools we trust, and that trust is easier to break than it is to build.
What works is giving people options. Let them try the new, but keep the old around for a while. Let habits shift on their timeline, not yours. Give them an on-ramp instead of forcing them off a cliff.
A little choice and a little empathy turn the sting of change into curiosity and growth. Moving the cheese does not have to feel like loss. Done right, it can feel like possibility.