5 ms·

This regresses the incentives back to what we had with search engines where what I need (answers) and what OpenAI needs (money from ads) are at odds. Search en

This regresses the incentives back to what we had with search engines where what I need (answers) and what OpenAI needs (money from ads) are at odds. Search engines used to be very useful too until the endless profit a/b testing boiled us all

risyachka 1y ago
Ads in ChatGPT was the most obvious outcome from day 1. And this is not a bad thing, otherwise you can only image how many businesses will close when google traffic stars to decline. Everyone likes to hate on ads but the reality is that without ads 99% users even on hacker news would be jobless as the companies where they work will have no way to find clients, and even if they manage to find some - those clients won't be able to sell and will go out of business.
- ElijahLynn 1y ago
  there are other ways to be probably, without ads. I'm optimistic we, as a society, will find those ways.
  - thedelanyo 1y ago
    I think ads are great, but the tactics (tracking) around them aren't really in the good course.
- rudedogg 1y ago
  > Ads in ChatGPT was the most obvious outcome from day 1 Agreed. Tech companies always do this. With Ads, we’re back into speculation territory, and the “how do we pay for and justify all this shit?” can gets kicked down the road. Can’t we actually solve problems in the real world instead? Wouldn’t people be willing to pay if AI makes them more productive? Why do we need an ad-supported business model when the product is only $20/mo?
  - bonoboTP 1y ago
    > Wouldn’t people be willing to pay if AI makes them more productive? Why do we need an ad-supported business model when the product is only $20/mo? This was always a fake reasoning (ads are there because people want everything for free!), but then paid HBO started ads, your purchased smart TVs started ads, cars that you bought with money started ads... ([some business model] + ads) will simply always generate more profit than [some business model] (at least that's how they think). Even if you already pay, if they also shove some ads in your eyes, they can make even more money. Corporations don't work the way humans do. There is no "enough". The task of the CEO is to grow the company, make more profit each quarter and is responsible to the shareholders. It's not like, ok, now we can pay all our bills, we don't need more revenue. You always need maximum possible revenue.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  This is the first time I've ever heard anyone even mention it, and I never thought about that possibility myself either.
- innagadadavida 1y ago
  Ads haven't made it yet, they are charging money for the purchase made: > Merchants pay a small fee on completed purchases, but the service is free for users, doesn’t affect their prices, and doesn’t influence ChatGPT’s product results.
  - hchdifnfbgbf 1y ago
    Yes, so they’re being incentivized to highlight products which they get a cut of, and more strongly to highlight more expensive products. This is called affiliate marketing and it’s toxic.
coldpie 1y ago
Five hundred gajillion dollars spent so we can end up in the same place except with these five men making all the money instead of those five men. Whee.
- rhetocj23 1y ago
  Is this a surprise though? This is the culture of America in a nutshell. Steve Jobs was a weirdo in that regard and an outlier.
  - coldpie 1y ago
    Who said anything about being surprised?
  - politelemon 1y ago
    No, and no.
- NoahZuniga 1y ago
  Google is a public company! You could have been one of "those five men".
  - clayhacks 1y ago
    Yes of course, let me buy a sizable chunk of one of the largest companies in the world so I can be on the five men. Owning a few shares is not the same thing as actually making all the money someone at the top of Google is making.
    - renewiltord 1y ago
      It was started in a garage. George Bush didn't give them the company.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  Don't forget all the extra electricity required to achieve roughly the same thing!
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
skydhash 1y ago
Even ads in magazines was much better than what we have now. Ads are contextual (a tech mag won’t have ads for gardening), so apart from the repetitive aspects, what is shown may be not needed, but it’s more likely to make a mental note because you’re already in the relevant context.
sholladay 1y ago
Agreed. One big difference, though, is that the local AI tech we have as an alternative to OpenAI is significantly better compared to the local alternatives we had for Google. You can run a reasonably powerful AI on your own machine right now. Sure, it’s not going to be as good. And the cost of GPUs, RAM, and electricity is important to keep in mind. But the point is it’s not all-or-nothing and you are not beholden to these corporations. There is also plenty of research going on to make models more efficient and powerful at small sizes. So that shift in the power gradient seems like it’s going to continue.
- chipgap98 1y ago
  I agree with this, but there were/are alternatives to Google that are functional but not as good. People still ended up choosing to use Google.
joe_the_user 1y ago
Ahem, The article is about ChatGPT check-out. Ecommerce and a relatively quick shows no mention of ads. Sure, this may in Google-style-monopoly direction or an Amazon-style-monopoly direction. I don't know which. I would indeed expect a large dose of enshittification would be involved. You're welcome to argue this leads to ads. But jumps to this is ads and getting a dozen pearl-clutching is a symptom of hn's own crude enshittification, jeesh.
cush 1y ago
Since it's tapped into etsy and shopify, ChatGPT might actually have a lot more power to shop local if you give it that as a constraint
- Someone1234 1y ago
  There is nothing "local" about etsy, and there has been for over ten years+. You can find all the same "handmade" products on AliExpress, and often Amazon.
  - cush 1y ago
    Fine... Shopify then? There exist brick and mortar stores near me with Shopify sites.
- SrslyJosh 1y ago
  Etsy is thoroughly fucked and full of mass-produced junk. "Local" could just mean buying from the nearest person who's reselling stuff from Ali Express. And have you noticed what sellers on Amazon are doing? Foreign companies are setting up distribution in the US and registering their US companies with Amazon as "small businesses" and "minority-owned businesses", making those labels utterly useless.
- walleeee 1y ago
  A lot more power than what?
  - cush 1y ago
    Like trusting the SEO from Googling "<Product> made near <my city>", or Amazon
fantasizr 1y ago
reminds me of the animation of google's results page progressively becoming more and more "sponsored links"
gtsop 1y ago
Free market 101 - profits over needs

risyachka 1y ago

Ads in ChatGPT was the most obvious outcome from day 1. And this is not a bad thing, otherwise you can only image how many businesses will close when google traffic stars to decline. Everyone likes to hate on ads but the reality is that without ads 99% users even on hacker news would be jobless as the companies where they work will have no way to find clients, and even if they manage to find some - those clients won't be able to sell and will go out of business.

ElijahLynn 1y ago
there are other ways to be probably, without ads. I'm optimistic we, as a society, will find those ways.
- thedelanyo 1y ago
  I think ads are great, but the tactics (tracking) around them aren't really in the good course.
rudedogg 1y ago
> Ads in ChatGPT was the most obvious outcome from day 1 Agreed. Tech companies always do this. With Ads, we’re back into speculation territory, and the “how do we pay for and justify all this shit?” can gets kicked down the road. Can’t we actually solve problems in the real world instead? Wouldn’t people be willing to pay if AI makes them more productive? Why do we need an ad-supported business model when the product is only $20/mo?
- bonoboTP 1y ago
  > Wouldn’t people be willing to pay if AI makes them more productive? Why do we need an ad-supported business model when the product is only $20/mo? This was always a fake reasoning (ads are there because people want everything for free!), but then paid HBO started ads, your purchased smart TVs started ads, cars that you bought with money started ads... ([some business model] + ads) will simply always generate more profit than [some business model] (at least that's how they think). Even if you already pay, if they also shove some ads in your eyes, they can make even more money. Corporations don't work the way humans do. There is no "enough". The task of the CEO is to grow the company, make more profit each quarter and is responsible to the shareholders. It's not like, ok, now we can pay all our bills, we don't need more revenue. You always need maximum possible revenue.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ranger_danger 1y ago
This is the first time I've ever heard anyone even mention it, and I never thought about that possibility myself either.
innagadadavida 1y ago
Ads haven't made it yet, they are charging money for the purchase made: > Merchants pay a small fee on completed purchases, but the service is free for users, doesn’t affect their prices, and doesn’t influence ChatGPT’s product results.
- hchdifnfbgbf 1y ago
  Yes, so they’re being incentivized to highlight products which they get a cut of, and more strongly to highlight more expensive products. This is called affiliate marketing and it’s toxic.

coldpie 1y ago

Five hundred gajillion dollars spent so we can end up in the same place except with these five men making all the money instead of those five men. Whee.

rhetocj23 1y ago
Is this a surprise though? This is the culture of America in a nutshell. Steve Jobs was a weirdo in that regard and an outlier.
- coldpie 1y ago
  Who said anything about being surprised?
- politelemon 1y ago
  No, and no.
NoahZuniga 1y ago
Google is a public company! You could have been one of "those five men".
- clayhacks 1y ago
  Yes of course, let me buy a sizable chunk of one of the largest companies in the world so I can be on the five men. Owning a few shares is not the same thing as actually making all the money someone at the top of Google is making.
  - renewiltord 1y ago
    It was started in a garage. George Bush didn't give them the company.
AlexandrB 1y ago
Don't forget all the extra electricity required to achieve roughly the same thing!

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

skydhash 1y ago

Even ads in magazines was much better than what we have now. Ads are contextual (a tech mag won’t have ads for gardening), so apart from the repetitive aspects, what is shown may be not needed, but it’s more likely to make a mental note because you’re already in the relevant context.

sholladay 1y ago

Agreed. One big difference, though, is that the local AI tech we have as an alternative to OpenAI is significantly better compared to the local alternatives we had for Google. You can run a reasonably powerful AI on your own machine right now. Sure, it’s not going to be as good. And the cost of GPUs, RAM, and electricity is important to keep in mind. But the point is it’s not all-or-nothing and you are not beholden to these corporations. There is also plenty of research going on to make models more efficient and powerful at small sizes. So that shift in the power gradient seems like it’s going to continue.

chipgap98 1y ago
I agree with this, but there were/are alternatives to Google that are functional but not as good. People still ended up choosing to use Google.

joe_the_user 1y ago

Ahem, The article is about ChatGPT check-out. Ecommerce and a relatively quick shows no mention of ads. Sure, this may in Google-style-monopoly direction or an Amazon-style-monopoly direction. I don't know which. I would indeed expect a large dose of enshittification would be involved. You're welcome to argue this leads to ads. But jumps to this is ads and getting a dozen pearl-clutching is a symptom of hn's own crude enshittification, jeesh.

cush 1y ago

Since it's tapped into etsy and shopify, ChatGPT might actually have a lot more power to shop local if you give it that as a constraint

Someone1234 1y ago
There is nothing "local" about etsy, and there has been for over ten years+. You can find all the same "handmade" products on AliExpress, and often Amazon.
- cush 1y ago
  Fine... Shopify then? There exist brick and mortar stores near me with Shopify sites.
SrslyJosh 1y ago
Etsy is thoroughly fucked and full of mass-produced junk. "Local" could just mean buying from the nearest person who's reselling stuff from Ali Express. And have you noticed what sellers on Amazon are doing? Foreign companies are setting up distribution in the US and registering their US companies with Amazon as "small businesses" and "minority-owned businesses", making those labels utterly useless.
walleeee 1y ago
A lot more power than what?
- cush 1y ago
  Like trusting the SEO from Googling "<Product> made near <my city>", or Amazon

fantasizr 1y ago

reminds me of the animation of google's results page progressively becoming more and more "sponsored links"

gtsop 1y ago

Free market 101 - profits over needs