The examples given are just embarrassing. What weather service doesn't understand zip codes, or, y'know, the name of an entire US state? Last year, I said: "C

The examples given are just embarrassing. What weather service doesn't understand zip codes, or, y'know, the name of an entire US state? Last year, I said: "Chatbots are a fancy name for when your API is accessible through some well-known IM service. They come with all of the monetization issues of APIs, but they're surfaced in an environment where you have no pre-existing relationship with the client, and you can't even charge them for access. This essentially limits the business model to where you give away the chatbot and make money some other way; or you recognize you have no business model and do it anyway." [1] The discoverability factor is amusing: apparently everyone complains about discoverability, just like they did with Apps and websites. First-comer Kik isn't big enough for advertisers, meanwhile, Facebook added bots just to have them and isn't doing anything to promote them because it realized it has all the users, and botmakers will give them business regardless. The discoverability question always boils down to "how will people find my stuff, in favor of my competitor's stuff?", which just proves that the chatboot "boom" is just like the app boom and the website boom before it [2]: a gold rush to make it big early, then as the dust settles, the roster of victors will have emerged and they'll maintain those rankings for years. Others can still establish niches for themselves, but they are deluded if they think runaway success is a realistic goal. All this means, as the article points out, that most of today's chatbots are just phone trees in text form -- which still has value, but is a lot less enticing as a get-quick-quick scheme. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13309116#13309844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13309116#13309844 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12863565#12867493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12863565#12867493