Chinese developers are climbing the firewall to pay more for GPT-5.6, and doing the maths on why

OpenAI’s new GPT-5.6 models are winning praise from an unlikely group. Users in mainland China, where the service is blocked and reachable only by VPN or third-party proxy, told the South China Morning Post the models are worth the extra cost. That is a striking verdict, because the extra cost is not small.