3 ms·
I'm confused. This is (publicly stated) the last resort for OpenAI, right?
by arm32 3mo ago
I'm confused. This is (publicly stated) the last resort for OpenAI, right?
- himata4113 3mo agoYep. Their other ventures fell through and don't exist anymore.
- arm32 3mo agoAh, gotcha. Wasn't sure if I was misremembering. I am no longer confused.
- awesome_dude 3mo agoAdvertising is every site's last resort - but it's the only damn thing that pays the bills
- arm32 3mo agoExcept this time, the bills are little bit higher!
- bunnybomb2 3mo agoI though openAI has plenty of investors/users? Are they really that much in debt/trouble?
- efficax 3mo agothey raised a ton of money but they spend it almost as fast as they can raise it. in any case they need real revenue if they want to ipo
- arm32 3mo agoThe difference between investors/users and new-investors/paying-users is so large and wide that I could both walk AND roll around on it.
- bunnybomb2 3mo agoWhat if they just forced everyone to pay $5 to use chatgpt? No free tier (I have no MBA)
- bstsb 3mo agothen every casual user would switch instantly to Gemini, or the most convenient alternative
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- tom_ 3mo agoYou misunderstand. They are going to force everybody to pay $5, then force everybody to use chatgpt. 8 billion times 5 isn't much money, but the advertisers will surely pay a lot for that many captive eyeballs! (I have no MBA either)
- smugglerFlynn 3mo agoAt this point why forcing people to use the service, if you can forcefully extract these eyeballs and then sell them directly to advertisers in large enough jars?
- vovavili 3mo agoThis kills their sales funnel.
- Marsymars 3mo agoMy jurisdiction just legalized sports betting (or something similar, I don't care all that much about what specifically got legalized), and there's been an immediate explosion in gambling ads across various media formats. A very common refrain is "these ads are terrible, but I refuse to consider paying for any ad-free subscriptions."
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- slekker 3mo agoThey are simply spending more money than they are making, burning cash like crazy and they got investments to try and prop up their chest, but this tells me they are desperate
- kimjune01 3mo agothe investors want their money to make more money
- slashdave 3mo agoEach user costs them money
- layer8 3mo agoMost of OpenAI‘s users are using the free tier, and have little incentive to change that.
- dbbk 3mo agoThey lose billions a month
- moritzwarhier 3mo agoDidn't they do sort of a 270-degree turn on this when they abandoned erotica chatbots?
- yieldcrv 3mo agoI don't think they are weighing things that way anymore, so much leadership has departed
- verteu 3mo agoYes, the quote was "Ads plus AI is sort of uniquely unsettling to me. I kind of think of ads as a last resort for us for a business model." (Sam Altman, Harvard 2024)
- Eliezer 3mo agoWhy on Earth would anyone take anything this man said to be informative about anything, other than what he thinks will currently sound best that minute to the current Zeitgeist that day?
- verteu 3mo agoSafely aligning a powerful CEO is difficult.
- kzrdude 3mo agoHe's already proven repeatedly that he'll break out of containment
- nozzlegear 3mo agoJust because he's a professional bullshitter doesn't mean he shouldn't be called out every time he waffles.
- ihumanable 3mo agoIn case anyone is out-of-the-loop https://youtu.be/FVRHTWWEIz4?si=btZnQp0IEnmgrtWV&t=2388 https://youtu.be/FVRHTWWEIz4?si=btZnQp0IEnmgrtWV&t=2388 "But I kind of think of ads as like a last resort for us for a business model. I would do it if it meant that was the only way to get everybody in the world access to great services. But if we can find something that doesn't do that, I'd prefer that."
- kamranjon 3mo agoWhat I think is really incredible about this is that they are selling a ton of subscriptions, both personal and business subscriptions. So the fact that they are doing advertising on top of this suggests to me that they are in a deep deep hole, much deeper than he probably would have imagined when making this statement. If your revenue is 25 billion and you still need ads, your costs must be running you down at a pace you really didn't anticipate.
- wat10000 3mo agoOr they ran the numbers and saw that they'll make more money with ads than without. I doubt they care about anything but the bottom line.
- majewsky 3mo ago> If your revenue is 25 billion It isn't. They had a one-month period around February that, if every month ran like taht, would constitute a yearly revenue of 25 billion. The fact that they appear to not have published a new annualized revenue number since then suggests that the trend is not upwards, which would make sense with the growing number of companies that are asking questions about ROI on AI expenses and cutting their token spend.
- jpadkins 3mo agoI think there are rules about public disclosures in a run up to an IPO. They may not be able to publish updates until the official IPO process begins.
- 3mo ago
- mohamedkoubaa 3mo agoTotally not a bubble right. Right?
- skywhopper 3mo agoIf you believe literally anything Sam Altman says, you are a fool.
- pants2 3mo agoRight - one would assume that if they're on the verge of an ASI that will consume the entire economy, advertising is only a distraction.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- buellerbueller 3mo agoAltman lies.