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> But fundamentally yes, OpenAI has no other moat than the ChatGPT trademark at this point. That's like saying that CocaCola has no other moat than the CocaCol

> But fundamentally yes, OpenAI has no other moat than the ChatGPT trademark at this point. That's like saying that CocaCola has no other moat than the CocaCola trademark. That's an extremely powerful moat to have indeed.

littlestymaar 2y ago
There's a big difference though Coca Cola makes its money from customers out its brands, OpenAI doesn't and it's not clear at all that there is monetization potential in that direction. Their business case was about being the provider of artificial intelligence to other businesses, not to monetize ChatGPT. There my be an opportunity for a pivot, that would include getting rid of the goal of having the most performant model, cutting training cost to the minimum, and be profitable from there, but I'm not sure it would be enough to justify their $157 Billion valuation.
anon373839 2y ago
Actually, they don’t have the trademark (yet). USPTO rejected the application: > [Trademark] Registration is refused because the applied-for mark merely describes a feature, function, or characteristic of applicant’s goods and services. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn97733261&docId=FREF20240209093901&linkId=5#docIndex=4&page=1 https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn97733261&docI...
sundarurfriend 2y ago
It's not nothing, but it's very different from the CocaCola case. Coke is built on getting people used to the specific taste, especially when they're young, and taste is an almost subconscious/System1 thing where people seek comfort in the familiar. ChatGPT is more of a System2 thing, people don't really care whether the answer they seek comes from ChatGPT or from AskJeeves, they just want answers of reasonably similar quality. There's still value in branding and name recognition, but the switching costs are much lower here.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  People can't tell coke apart from Pepsi in blind tests though, the perceived difference when people are getting asked “Is Pepsi ok?” is 100% conditioned by the attachment to the brand.

littlestymaar 2y ago

There's a big difference though Coca Cola makes its money from customers out its brands, OpenAI doesn't and it's not clear at all that there is monetization potential in that direction. Their business case was about being the provider of artificial intelligence to other businesses, not to monetize ChatGPT. There my be an opportunity for a pivot, that would include getting rid of the goal of having the most performant model, cutting training cost to the minimum, and be profitable from there, but I'm not sure it would be enough to justify their $157 Billion valuation.

anon373839 2y ago

Actually, they don’t have the trademark (yet). USPTO rejected the application: > [Trademark] Registration is refused because the applied-for mark merely describes a feature, function, or characteristic of applicant’s goods and services. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn97733261&docId=FREF20240209093901&linkId=5#docIndex=4&page=1 https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn97733261&docI...

sundarurfriend 2y ago

It's not nothing, but it's very different from the CocaCola case. Coke is built on getting people used to the specific taste, especially when they're young, and taste is an almost subconscious/System1 thing where people seek comfort in the familiar. ChatGPT is more of a System2 thing, people don't really care whether the answer they seek comes from ChatGPT or from AskJeeves, they just want answers of reasonably similar quality. There's still value in branding and name recognition, but the switching costs are much lower here.

littlestymaar 2y ago
People can't tell coke apart from Pepsi in blind tests though, the perceived difference when people are getting asked “Is Pepsi ok?” is 100% conditioned by the attachment to the brand.