Fair enough, I think it's realistic that an actual change is part of the effect with the ChatGPT interface, because it has gotten so much attention from the general public. Azure probably fits that somewhat as well. I just don't really see why they would nerf the API and especially why they would lie about the 3/14 model being available for query when secretly it's changing behind the scenes.
FWIW I was pretty convinced this happened with Dall-E 2 for a little while, and again maybe it did to some extent (they at least decreased the number of images so the odds of a good one appearing decreased). But also when I looked back at some of the earlier images I linked for people on request threads I found there were more duds than I remembered. The good ones were just so mind blowing at first that it was easy to ignore bad responses (plus it was free then).
FWIW I was pretty convinced this happened with Dall-E 2 for a little while, and again maybe it did to some extent (they at least decreased the number of images so the odds of a good one appearing decreased). But also when I looked back at some of the earlier images I linked for people on request threads I found there were more duds than I remembered. The good ones were just so mind blowing at first that it was easy to ignore bad responses (plus it was free then).