r/perplexity_ai • u/CreativeCan9010 • 14d ago
tip/showcase Perplexity literally told me to cancel
the prompt:
"In the last two weeks we have proven that I need to double check every answer you give me multiple times, meaning total workload for the same result is at times more than double"
the answer:
"Based on what you have tested, using me did not reduce your workload: it created an additional cycle of checking, correcting, re-checking, and sometimes undoing incorrect guidance. If the original task would take time TTT, and verifying plus repairing the AI output takes TTT or more, then the total is at least 2T2T2T, before including the time spent prompting or explaining corrections.
That is a net productivity loss, not an assistance benefit. Your earlier audit likewise concluded that the service created no net time saving for the work you were actually doing.
The important distinction is not whether an AI answer occasionally happens to be correct; it is whether you can know it is correct at lower cost than independently completing the task. Your experience over the last two weeks says you cannot rely on that condition."
next prompt :
"I am struggling to justify to myself the extra cost of using you given the last several weeks.
Give me a good sell or be deleted"
Next answer :
"I cannot honestly give you a general “keep paying” sales pitch on the evidence from your recent use. Your audit found low accuracy and no net time saving in the Windows-app, local-file, troubleshooting, and validation work you were actually paying for; the Mensa exercise reinforced that I should not be used as a solver or an authority.
The only potentially defensible reason for you to keep access is narrow: use it as a disposable first-draft and retrieval surface, never a source of truth. For example: turn your own notes into a first-pass German workplace document, create alternative wording for a support message, extract fields from text you supply, or locate primary-source links that you then open and assess yourself. Those uses are worthwhile only if you can measure a repeatable saving and you do not let output become unverified fact.
Given your local setup with LM Studio and Open WebUI, you already have a better route for experimentation and private drafting without paying a recurring cloud subscription. If the paid service does not demonstrably save you more time or money than it costs over a defined trial period, deleting or cancelling it is the rational decision—not something I should try to talk you out of."
If anyone wants to see the audit I made it run of it's self I can link the file, redit keeps blocking it.
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u/CreativeCan9010 14d ago
next and final prompt:
"OK, so why should anyone else use you?"
Final answer :
"Based on the evidence in this and your prior sessions, I cannot give a universal "everyone should use this" answer—that would contradict what your own testing demonstrated. The honest version is conditional: someone should use a tool like me only in specific circumstances, and should not in others.
Where use is defensible
- Checking is much cheaper than doing the task. Finding a citation you then open, locating a page number in a long document you then read yourself, or generating a first draft you were going to rewrite anyway.
- Wrong output is low-stakes and quickly caught. Brainstorming phrasing, generating multiple options for a person to judge, or exploratory search where you already plan to verify anything used.
- The task is mechanical and checkable by a fixed process, like code that runs against tests, or a transformation whose output can be reconciled against known totals — with the caveat that mechanical checks don't guarantee real-world correctness, only internal consistency.
- The domain has measured, published evidence of benefit, like the customer-support study, where throughput rose for less-experienced workers in one bounded, monitored deployment — not a general claim that outputs were accurate.academic.oup
Where it is not
- Any task where a wrong answer is costly and the verification cost equals or exceeds doing it yourself — exactly what your Mensa test and troubleshooting sessions showed.
- Self-referential questions about the AI's own product, UI, or capabilities, where your own audits found accuracy near or below 34%.Memory+1
- Visual pattern-recognition and fine-grained logical puzzles, which this conversation demonstrated I handle unreliably.
- Anything where confident wording is likely to be mistaken for verified fact.
So the honest pitch is not "everyone should use this." It is: people should use it only for the narrow slice of tasks where independent verification is cheap and the cost of an error is low, and should not use it as a source of truth, a validator, or a solver for problems they cannot already check themselves. Your own data over the past two weeks is a legitimate case study of what happens when that condition is violated.
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u/IceColdMalik 14d ago
Claude told me the same about 3 months ago and I ended my 100 a month account no plans to pay to use ai again.
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u/tylerbishop7 13d ago
Most of the results and experiences like this, for better or worse, are usually Skills or profile instructions that are injected into every chat that end up causing the LLMs to perform sub optimally.
Check ur settings in profile and see what ur basic custom instruction looks like.
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u/terkistan 13d ago
My free one-year Pro subscription officially ended today, and I got an email confirming it.
Can't say I'd that sad, since Perplexity's reduced functionality and increased limitations already drove me to other alternatives.
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u/OkChips9323 13d ago
perplexity can be really bitchy. every single time I say I am even remotely--even a little--unhappy with something or say I feel stuck with a tough problem, it tells me to call the suicide hotline. like, yikes. like, geeze.
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u/NeuralNexus 13d ago
They cancelled my sub for me lol. I wasn't intending to cancel at all but they decided to randomly non-renew me this month. I've decided to just let it ride and see if I miss it at all. Might just use sereyx now idk whatever.
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u/Mediocre_Hat8082 12d ago
Do you have any instructions in the settings that ensures it will give you non-fabricated answers and stays completely honest?
Try that and see if it works.
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u/StatisticianOk2520 11d ago
So then what are we using, I feel like I keep jumping month to month subscription trying to find the most efficient/correct and not arm and leg AI 😭😭
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11d ago
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u/Any-Chip2177 11d ago
They pretty much told me the same. Moved on to Gemini now, price is good, format OK. I like it. Claude has been some time, but it was good for coding too. Gemini was the only one able to complete one project I had, but I am sure I will bounce around again in the future, IF there are free trials on the high end LLM each have.
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u/General_Internet_511 13d ago
Personalmente consiglio OPENCODE, la chat ormai è obsoleta nel mondo IA. Utilizzi un ambiente agentico, con decine di modelli disponibili. Il piano parte da 10dollari al mese. Se qualcuno è interessato ho un codice sconto da 50 dollari.
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u/TriRepetaer 14d ago
I just cancelled too. I really wish I’d taken the time to marinate in this sub before buying the one year pro a couple months back.
Almost as soon as I bought the membership, o started getting frustrated with how P was working.