GPT-5 is here. Its potential is extraordinary—and its impact will be felt across industries. But real progress isn’t just about smarter models. It’s about smarter foundations.
Structured output—JSON schemas, function calls, predictable patterns—isn’t just for developers. It’s the invisible framework that holds our systems together. It brings consistency, clarity, and scale across teams and platforms.
But today, we’re charged for every token—including static keys and repeated labels. That’s structure, not signal. And taxing it like creative output slows us down.
We see developers rewriting elegant architectures into compressed formats, just to dodge costs. Readability suffers. Creativity is compromised. And innovation gets tied up in optimising for interchange formats instead of creating bold new solutions.
This is more than a technical issue. It’s strategic.
Pricing should be based on cost—not punish clarity and structure overhead. Providers should empower businesses to scale with confidence—not pressure them into fragmented design choices just to save a few tokens.
Structure is strategy. Architecture is competitive advantage. And the cost of constantly collapsing and reconstructing output formats comes with real opportunity loss.
Repeal the JSON tax
