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Wouldn't want to give out valuable ad space[1] for free now would we. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46086771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460

Wouldn't want to give out valuable ad space[1] for free now would we. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46086771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46086771

nsoqm 11mo ago
This comment proves that whatever they do, they can’t win.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- lkbm 11mo ago
  Only if there's no third option other "let others put ads on your platform" and "show ads on your platform yourself".
dmix 11mo ago
The issue in the article was paying customers complaining about ads. The ads OpenAI wants to roll out would likely be for free users, since the costs of training and running these LLM systems is very expensive. From the tweet in your linked post: > This could help OpenAI give free users more generous usage and features, while users on paid plans stay ad free, which fits with the high costs of running ChatGPT and the revenue they expect from shopping and ad related features
- bostik 11mo ago
  > The ads OpenAI wants to roll out would like be for free users At first. The scream going through the hallways at HQ must be along the lines of: "Nonononono! Not yet!"
  - dmix 11mo ago
    Then use a different LLM
- estimator7292 11mo ago
  You'd have to be pretty dumb to believe ads are only for the free tier. Look at literally every subscription streaming service. They all have ads on paid tiers now. They will put ads in the paid ChatGPT tiers. That is an absolute certainty. The only question is how long will they tolerate un-advertised eyballs on paid plans.
  - dmix 11mo ago
    Netflix's paid+ads plan costs 50% less than the standard paid only version with no ads. I could see ChatGPT search results having affiliate links for shopping stuff even for fully-paid users. There's a lot of competition in this space, so we'll see what users tolerate. But it's going to be tough getting around the fact this stuff is expensive to run. Things like this are only 'free' for a reason.
    - wyre 11mo ago
      >this stuff is expensive to run What's expensive is innovating on current models and building the infrastructure. My understanding is inference is cheap and profitable. Most open source models cost less than a dollar for 1 million tokens which makes me think SotA models likely have a similar pricepoint, but more profit margin.
      - aeon_ai 11mo ago
        I can assure you that inference is not profitable if the user is paying nothing.
        rchaud 11mo ago
        DAU/MAU stats of free users have already carved out multi-millionaire and billionaire fortunes for employees and executives, all paid out with VC money. Plenty of people are profiting, even if the corporation is deep in the red.
  - amarcheschi 11mo ago
    look at points everywhere for enshittification
- PunchyHamster 11mo ago
  > The issue in the article was paying customers complaining about ads. They will just introduce cheaper, ad supported tier, price hike it to the previous price of ad-free tier and slow-boil the user base
  - anticensor 11mo ago
    There's no point doing that given the Responses API has to be ad-free unlike ChatGPT Web API for applications to function correctly (no way baking ads into responses sent to third party services using your language model just as a natural language processor), and you have to keep the Web API tiers that's more expensive than the same amount of tokens of equivalent Responses API use also ad-free becuase otherwise the "wrong way of payment" paradox would arise.
rat9988 11mo ago
So, they should have kept it? Are you going to malign every action, even if it is positive?
- hamdingers 11mo ago
  What's the positive action here, showing ads to paying customers or making a hollow apology after they were caught? Is anyone actually this oblivious?

Wouldn't want to give out valuable ad space[1] for free now would we. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46086771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46086771

nsoqm 11mo ago

This comment proves that whatever they do, they can’t win.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
lkbm 11mo ago
Only if there's no third option other "let others put ads on your platform" and "show ads on your platform yourself".

dmix 11mo ago

The issue in the article was paying customers complaining about ads. The ads OpenAI wants to roll out would likely be for free users, since the costs of training and running these LLM systems is very expensive. From the tweet in your linked post: > This could help OpenAI give free users more generous usage and features, while users on paid plans stay ad free, which fits with the high costs of running ChatGPT and the revenue they expect from shopping and ad related features

bostik 11mo ago
> The ads OpenAI wants to roll out would like be for free users At first. The scream going through the hallways at HQ must be along the lines of: "Nonononono! Not yet!"
- dmix 11mo ago
  Then use a different LLM
estimator7292 11mo ago
You'd have to be pretty dumb to believe ads are only for the free tier. Look at literally every subscription streaming service. They all have ads on paid tiers now. They will put ads in the paid ChatGPT tiers. That is an absolute certainty. The only question is how long will they tolerate un-advertised eyballs on paid plans.
- dmix 11mo ago
  Netflix's paid+ads plan costs 50% less than the standard paid only version with no ads. I could see ChatGPT search results having affiliate links for shopping stuff even for fully-paid users. There's a lot of competition in this space, so we'll see what users tolerate. But it's going to be tough getting around the fact this stuff is expensive to run. Things like this are only 'free' for a reason.
  - wyre 11mo ago
    >this stuff is expensive to run What's expensive is innovating on current models and building the infrastructure. My understanding is inference is cheap and profitable. Most open source models cost less than a dollar for 1 million tokens which makes me think SotA models likely have a similar pricepoint, but more profit margin.
    - aeon_ai 11mo ago
      I can assure you that inference is not profitable if the user is paying nothing.
      - rchaud 11mo ago
        DAU/MAU stats of free users have already carved out multi-millionaire and billionaire fortunes for employees and executives, all paid out with VC money. Plenty of people are profiting, even if the corporation is deep in the red.
- amarcheschi 11mo ago
  look at points everywhere for enshittification
PunchyHamster 11mo ago
> The issue in the article was paying customers complaining about ads. They will just introduce cheaper, ad supported tier, price hike it to the previous price of ad-free tier and slow-boil the user base
- anticensor 11mo ago
  There's no point doing that given the Responses API has to be ad-free unlike ChatGPT Web API for applications to function correctly (no way baking ads into responses sent to third party services using your language model just as a natural language processor), and you have to keep the Web API tiers that's more expensive than the same amount of tokens of equivalent Responses API use also ad-free becuase otherwise the "wrong way of payment" paradox would arise.

rat9988 11mo ago

So, they should have kept it? Are you going to malign every action, even if it is positive?

hamdingers 11mo ago
What's the positive action here, showing ads to paying customers or making a hollow apology after they were caught? Is anyone actually this oblivious?