This thing about openai brand is changing fast. In the dev circles I'm part of, everybody dislikes OpenAI and prefer Claude. How long it'll take for the same to happen with the normies?
I use Claude for work and Codex for private use due to already having a Plus subscription.
I can't say that I have noticed that 5.3-Codex is much better, but it's definitely on par with Opus 4.6, and its limits for $25/months is comparable to Max x5 at 1/4th of the cost (not to mention pay-per-token which we use at work). Claude Code is generally a much better experience though.
The thing is though, Google Gemini is pretty good and it's not super hard to switch to and, the real moat, Google can just keep improving, integrating Gemini, and gathering customer while just waiting for OpenAI to go bankrupt. Basically, everyone on the planet has to pay OpenAI to keep them in business. If they don't get the vast majority of the market OpenAI can't pay their bills. Google is going to just starve OpenAI out.
Sure Google can go against that, but it's openai is definitely in a much better spot. It's pretty important for a consumer market.