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I think you're right about stickyness up to a point. Cultural defaults seem unchangeable but then suddenly everyone knows, that's everyone knows, that OpenAI i

I think you're right about stickyness up to a point. Cultural defaults seem unchangeable but then suddenly everyone knows, that's everyone knows, that OpenAI is passé. OpenAI has a real chance to blow their lead, ending up in a hellish no-man's land by trying to please everyone: Not cool enough for normies, not safe enough for business, not radical enough for techies. Pick a lane or perish. Not owning their own infrastructure, and being propped up by financial / valuation tricks are more red flags. Being a first mover doesn't guarantee getting to the golden goose, remember MySpace.

oblio 8mo ago
> Being a first mover doesn't guarantee getting to the golden goose, remember MySpace. MySpace, ICQ, Altavista, Dropbox, Yahoo, BlackBerry, Xerox Alto, Altair 8800, CP/M, WordStar, VisiCalc, the list is very long.
- shakow 8mo ago
  VisiCalc, CP/M, BlackBerry and Yahoo definitely got a golden goose; it's long after establishing their dominance that they failed at maintaining it.
  - stingraycharles 8mo ago
    Isn’t that exactly what’s being discussed re: OpenAI? They seemed unstoppable a few years ago, but have lost quite a bit of reputation and their position of technical lead.
    - shakow 8mo ago
      What I mean is that the one I cited were first movers that actually found a golden goose, then got ousted years/decades later for various reasons. For now at least, OpenAI has not found a golden goose (i.e. made a lot of money) yet.
    - wickedsight 8mo ago
      > have lost quite a bit of reputation in the tech world, maybe. All my 'normie' friends are using ChatGPT though and have no concept of their reputation, nor intention of switching. Most people I know are hardly even aware of alternatives, even of Gemini, though everyone has a Google account. I personally also use ChatGPT and have zero reason not to, currently. I might switch if they royally mess up, but everything they've messed up has been fixed within a day.
      - XorNot 8mo ago
        But would they pay for it? That's the difference.
        famouswaffles 8mo ago
        More people pay for ChatGPT than any other Consumer AI service by far, and when ads rollout, it won't matter that much.
        stingraycharles 8mo ago
        “consumer” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, I’d be curious to know how it compares to overall AI usage (ie including professionals using it).
        famouswaffles 8mo ago
        It's not. By consumer, I simply mean the respective apps, not API Usage. I'm not excluding "professionals" lol.
      - stingraycharles 8mo ago
        My normie friends aren’t paying several hundred of $ a month on their services, though.
- mercer 8mo ago
  Hotmail is a good example too. I remember it being pretty ubiquitous, at least for the 'personal email' crowd, and it seemed implausible that people would give up on what was often their main email 'location' for another offering without being able to transfer their often important and personal stuff. then gmail came along.
  - FartyMcFarter 8mo ago
    Interesting point. I guess people liked the convenience of unlimited storage even more than they liked the convenience of keeping the same email address. In a way they traded one convenience for another.
  - mister_mort 8mo ago
    Did Hotmail offer email redirection at that time? I can't remember whether that sort of thing that would make it easy to switch away was offered.
    - croon 8mo ago
      I don't remember that detail, but I do remember most people not treating their inbox as an archive at the time. So there was less friction to switch to gmail, and more reason to do so due to the "real time" ticking storage amount of gmail, which then became an archive (again for most people).
      - kergonath 8mo ago
        > I do remember most people not treating their inbox as an archive at the time. Indeed. For me, the step was gmail. With its humongous 1GB of storage, that was the moment when I stopped having to delete stuff to save space. It’s funny because a lot of people I know who were already older at that point kept the habit of deleting emails, even today.
  - prawn 8mo ago
    Beyond that too, I would think that many people view a Hotmail account as an indicator that you're backwards or not serious in business. I distinctly remember the shift to and then away from Altavista as well.
- Lorkki 8mo ago
  IBM owned literally the whole market on computers at a time when computing equipment was prohibitively expensive and centralised.
  - oblio 8mo ago
    IBM was a special case, I'm not sure there were many markets so thoroughly cornered like IT was for about 3 decades. I guess telephone (AT&T) was similar.
    - Lorkki 8mo ago
      I think there's similarity to the dynamic too. Not many instances have the means at this time to produce LLMs from scratch and operate them at scale.
- nixass 8mo ago
  > the list is very long Tesla is lurking as well
brookst 8mo ago
First mover advantage: marketing logic or marketing legend: https://gtellis.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/pioneering-advantage-marketing-logic-or-marketing-legend.pdf https://gtellis.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/pioneering-ad...
onion2k 8mo ago
Pick a lane or perish. Literally every industry has examples of businesses that don't excel at anything and still do well enough to carry on. In fact, in most industries, it's actually hard to see any business that's clearly leading on any specific front because as soon as it becomes an obvious factor in gaining market share the competing businesses focus on that area as well.
- gmac 8mo ago
  Yeah. Vauxhall/Opel has always been my go-to example here. Their cars excel at nothing. They’re not especially stylish. Not the fastest or nicest to drive. Not unusually efficient. Not particularly reliable or guaranteed for a long period. By no means the cheapest. They don’t even achieve a sweet spot of averageness across all these things. Yet people have somehow carried on buying them over decades.
  - nDRDY 8mo ago
    Jeremey Clarkson called the Astra "the most boring car ever made". I loved both of mine - they always got me and my stuff where I needed to be, and were easy to fix. The last one, a 2007 model that has now moved on to my younger sibling, might be the last "simple" car.
chasd00 8mo ago
I guess it depends on what you mean by golden goose. MySpace sold for an insane amount of money at the time and it was basically one guy, “Tom”.

oblio 8mo ago

> Being a first mover doesn't guarantee getting to the golden goose, remember MySpace. MySpace, ICQ, Altavista, Dropbox, Yahoo, BlackBerry, Xerox Alto, Altair 8800, CP/M, WordStar, VisiCalc, the list is very long.

shakow 8mo ago
VisiCalc, CP/M, BlackBerry and Yahoo definitely got a golden goose; it's long after establishing their dominance that they failed at maintaining it.
- stingraycharles 8mo ago
  Isn’t that exactly what’s being discussed re: OpenAI? They seemed unstoppable a few years ago, but have lost quite a bit of reputation and their position of technical lead.
  - shakow 8mo ago
    What I mean is that the one I cited were first movers that actually found a golden goose, then got ousted years/decades later for various reasons. For now at least, OpenAI has not found a golden goose (i.e. made a lot of money) yet.
  - wickedsight 8mo ago
    > have lost quite a bit of reputation in the tech world, maybe. All my 'normie' friends are using ChatGPT though and have no concept of their reputation, nor intention of switching. Most people I know are hardly even aware of alternatives, even of Gemini, though everyone has a Google account. I personally also use ChatGPT and have zero reason not to, currently. I might switch if they royally mess up, but everything they've messed up has been fixed within a day.
    - XorNot 8mo ago
      But would they pay for it? That's the difference.
      - famouswaffles 8mo ago
        More people pay for ChatGPT than any other Consumer AI service by far, and when ads rollout, it won't matter that much.
        stingraycharles 8mo ago
        “consumer” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, I’d be curious to know how it compares to overall AI usage (ie including professionals using it).
        famouswaffles 8mo ago
        It's not. By consumer, I simply mean the respective apps, not API Usage. I'm not excluding "professionals" lol.
    - stingraycharles 8mo ago
      My normie friends aren’t paying several hundred of $ a month on their services, though.
mercer 8mo ago
Hotmail is a good example too. I remember it being pretty ubiquitous, at least for the 'personal email' crowd, and it seemed implausible that people would give up on what was often their main email 'location' for another offering without being able to transfer their often important and personal stuff. then gmail came along.
- FartyMcFarter 8mo ago
  Interesting point. I guess people liked the convenience of unlimited storage even more than they liked the convenience of keeping the same email address. In a way they traded one convenience for another.
- mister_mort 8mo ago
  Did Hotmail offer email redirection at that time? I can't remember whether that sort of thing that would make it easy to switch away was offered.
  - croon 8mo ago
    I don't remember that detail, but I do remember most people not treating their inbox as an archive at the time. So there was less friction to switch to gmail, and more reason to do so due to the "real time" ticking storage amount of gmail, which then became an archive (again for most people).
    - kergonath 8mo ago
      > I do remember most people not treating their inbox as an archive at the time. Indeed. For me, the step was gmail. With its humongous 1GB of storage, that was the moment when I stopped having to delete stuff to save space. It’s funny because a lot of people I know who were already older at that point kept the habit of deleting emails, even today.
- prawn 8mo ago
  Beyond that too, I would think that many people view a Hotmail account as an indicator that you're backwards or not serious in business. I distinctly remember the shift to and then away from Altavista as well.
Lorkki 8mo ago
IBM owned literally the whole market on computers at a time when computing equipment was prohibitively expensive and centralised.
- oblio 8mo ago
  IBM was a special case, I'm not sure there were many markets so thoroughly cornered like IT was for about 3 decades. I guess telephone (AT&T) was similar.
  - Lorkki 8mo ago
    I think there's similarity to the dynamic too. Not many instances have the means at this time to produce LLMs from scratch and operate them at scale.
nixass 8mo ago
> the list is very long Tesla is lurking as well

brookst 8mo ago

First mover advantage: marketing logic or marketing legend: https://gtellis.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/pioneering-advantage-marketing-logic-or-marketing-legend.pdf https://gtellis.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/pioneering-ad...

onion2k 8mo ago

Pick a lane or perish. Literally every industry has examples of businesses that don't excel at anything and still do well enough to carry on. In fact, in most industries, it's actually hard to see any business that's clearly leading on any specific front because as soon as it becomes an obvious factor in gaining market share the competing businesses focus on that area as well.

gmac 8mo ago
Yeah. Vauxhall/Opel has always been my go-to example here. Their cars excel at nothing. They’re not especially stylish. Not the fastest or nicest to drive. Not unusually efficient. Not particularly reliable or guaranteed for a long period. By no means the cheapest. They don’t even achieve a sweet spot of averageness across all these things. Yet people have somehow carried on buying them over decades.
- nDRDY 8mo ago
  Jeremey Clarkson called the Astra "the most boring car ever made". I loved both of mine - they always got me and my stuff where I needed to be, and were easy to fix. The last one, a 2007 model that has now moved on to my younger sibling, might be the last "simple" car.

chasd00 8mo ago

I guess it depends on what you mean by golden goose. MySpace sold for an insane amount of money at the time and it was basically one guy, “Tom”.