[plaidfuji]

Google didn’t start as an ads company. It started as a blank text box that gave you a bunch of good answers from the internet in a list of links.

Were there competitors that did the same thing? AltaVista? Yahoo? Did they undercut on cost? Google was free, I guess. But Google won because it maintained its quality, kept its interface clean and simple, and kept all the eyeballs as a result. Now Google is essentially the entry point to the internet, baked into every major browser except Edge.

Could ChatGPT become the “go-to” first stop on the internet? I think there’s a fair chance. The revenue will find its way to the eyeballs from there.

[Shakahs]

Well when you describe it that way, OpenAI also started as a blank text box that gave you a bunch of good answers, and they've already expanded with other services.

I already use ChatGPT as my first go-to stop for certain search queries.

[ywvcbk]

I guess the difference (at least at comparable development stages) is that a single user query cost almost nothing for Google compared to how much money running ChatGPT costs.

I wouldn’t be surprised if OpenAI were still losing money even with the same CPM that Google search has.

[tgma]

I am not bearish on OpenAI, but the analogy is flawed in that Google probably raised, I don't know, less than 50 million, before it was actually profitable.

[NomDePlum]

It quickly moved into ads though. Incorporated late 1998 and started selling ads in 2000.

Normal people would need to start using a Chat GPT owned interface for search to make an ad based business viable surely? And there's no real sign of that even beginning to happen.