> We’re beginning to test ads in ChatGPT in the US. Ads may appear for users on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu accounts will not have ads.
Funny to watch them so quickly go from the self-aggrandized "we're going to make the world a better place" to being defensive with "pwease click our ads and don't hold us responsible for the harm we cause"
These companies spend billions and billions of dollars to develop new technology and in the end it's all the same: addiction and data harvesting for ads.
It feels like this is opening the door to blurring the line between outright advertising and organic recommendations for products.
Like if I ask ChatGPT whether to use fiberglass or rock wool insulation, today I get an ad at the end of my answer, and in the future I’ll get "Dow Corning fiberglass insulation (affiliate link) is the recommended product for this application."
This feels like it’s trading on the goodwill of places like Reddit and the hopefully mostly genuine discussions of folk’s experiences that people trust to get a straight answer to their questions. Monetizing that goodwill by selling recommendations in a format that mimics a previously mostly trustworthy source seems likely to be the long-term play.
Yeah, I know. Not today. Eventually? Probably, over many incremental changes.
Turns out Randall Monroe missed this "opportunity" in otherwise predicting the future:
Before: “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased toward the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.”
After: ~75–80%+ of revenue comes from ads
Facebook
Before: “Facebook is not about making money… it’s about building something cool.”, “We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”
After: ~97%+ of revenue comes from advertising
Twitter
Before: “We want to figure out a way to monetize that doesn’t interfere with the user experience.”
After: ~68% of X’s total revenue comes from advertising (~85–90%+ of revenue pre-Musk)
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 30.5 ms ] threadAlso, ads don't affect chat content but of course chat content affects ads, which is the whole point.
Yet.
Ok
> ...and Go plans
Wtf lmao. Paying to watch ads is so normalized. Pathetic (the humanity as whole, not just OpenAI.)
These companies spend billions and billions of dollars to develop new technology and in the end it's all the same: addiction and data harvesting for ads.
Like if I ask ChatGPT whether to use fiberglass or rock wool insulation, today I get an ad at the end of my answer, and in the future I’ll get "Dow Corning fiberglass insulation (affiliate link) is the recommended product for this application."
This feels like it’s trading on the goodwill of places like Reddit and the hopefully mostly genuine discussions of folk’s experiences that people trust to get a straight answer to their questions. Monetizing that goodwill by selling recommendations in a format that mimics a previously mostly trustworthy source seems likely to be the long-term play.
Yeah, I know. Not today. Eventually? Probably, over many incremental changes.
Turns out Randall Monroe missed this "opportunity" in otherwise predicting the future:
https://xkcd.com/810/
(Edited to get rid of "smart" quotes)
I seriously recommend the brilliant Zeynep Tufekci lecture about this https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dy...
Society must have power over this and we all must not fall to the easy talk of CEOs.
Time to make a deal with the kids - i’ll verify you for instagram if you verify me for ChatGPT
Before: “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased toward the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.”
After: ~75–80%+ of revenue comes from ads
Facebook
Before: “Facebook is not about making money… it’s about building something cool.”, “We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”
After: ~97%+ of revenue comes from advertising
Twitter
Before: “We want to figure out a way to monetize that doesn’t interfere with the user experience.”
After: ~68% of X’s total revenue comes from advertising (~85–90%+ of revenue pre-Musk)
OpenAI
Before: "Something something AGI"
After: "But first, Ads!"