[donny2018]

Technologically they may have caught up, but market wise they may have lost forever. In my country (and I think in many others), ChatGPT is already a household name, and nobody has even heard about Gemini.

This looks like the Google+ vs Facebook story all over again.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

Teenagers are using Snapchat's "My AI", and have no idea that it's from OpenAI. I don't think people are using ChatGPT out of brand loyalty/preference as much as inertia - they stick to what they first tried unless given reason to switch.

At the end of the day the money to be made from AI won't be $20/mo personal chatbot subscriptions, but corporate and app-integrated (e.g. Cursor) use where the usage is potentially far higher. Companies will chose their faceless AI provider based on cost and capability.

[skyyler]

Are teenagers still using Snapchat?

The teenagers that made the bulk of its users when it was new are in their late 20s now.

[eitally]

Snap is the default chat app in high schools in the US. The second is Instagram. The third is a fallback to SMS / iMessage. I personally have never seen a teen using a third party chat app (like Whatsapp/Telegram/Signal/etc).

(I have 14 & 16 year olds, neither of whom have social media. It really is unpleasant for them sometimes, trying to keep up with JIT event logistics carried out on Snap.)

[mmasu]

I have a question for you - is it their choice not to have social media, or yours? Neither is bad - I’m father to a young girl (not school age yet) and am starting to think about how I should approach this as a parent

[walledstance]

I’m interested in this answer as well, since I have a little who isn’t school aged either. I’m trying to compile perspectives to make this same decision.

[eitally]

I replied to the other poster about this, but I absolutely do not think kids inherently understand the risks inherent in social media. As one stupid example, earlier this school year we had to talk with the parents of another XC team member who posted a team photo to the team instagram with thumbs downs covering the faces of our son and another athlete. If that sort of thing was private, fine. I don't particularly care about the vapid beefs between teens (although we did get the details and, knowing the other kid, I side firmly with my son), but the other athlete posted it publicly, with no context, and on an account that looks like it's run by the school.

That's just a silly example that doesn't even get into the posting of risky behaviors, using inappropriate language, bullying or whatever else. I do not believe kids grok all this innately and it's important for parents (and teachers and coaches and other adult influences in their lives) to educate them.

We also spot check our kids' phones periodically. Not because we don't trust them, but because it's important to know sometimes whether there are issues afoot that we aren't privy to and could help with. (Disappearing messages is another parental challenge with Snap.). This might sound overbearing and intrusive, but I don't believe it is. Our 16yo has mostly graduated from us feeling a need to check his comms, but we still monitor our 14yo a couple times a week because she's less forthcoming about goings on in her friend group.

Fwiw, it's not like we don't trust our kids to make good decisions themselves. We have added both as authorized users to one of our credit cards, which they have access to via Google Wallet. In all things like this, clear communications and expectation setting between parents & children is the most important, no matter what you decide -- or whether your decisions change over time (or are dependent on the child's own behavior/decisions).

[HarHarVeryFunny]

I have a 16yr old (girl), and our decision was essentially to "go with the flow" - give her a phone at same age as bulk of her peers were getting one, and not to put blocks on anything. So far so good. The rationale is that the current social media environment is the world they are growing up with, so better get used to it. Kids are generally quite tech savvy and share information with each other, and understand the need for online privacy - when to share only with friends, etc.

It'd be very limiting not to allow your child to have access to things like Snapchat when all their peers have it and are using it to communicate on a daily basis.

[eitally]

Apologies for the delayed reply. It's our choice, not theirs. My daughter (14) doesn't really care either way, but my son was mildly perturbed when we took Snapchat away. Not because he regularly post snaps, but because it's the way his peer group coordinates. It's roughly this hierarchy: Snap --> Insta --> iMessage/SMS --> grab bag of other chat apps.

My daughter (8th grade) and her friend group seem to be fine using group chats for comms, and although a lot of her friends do have Instagram & Tiktok (not so much Snap in middle school), she hasn't expressed interest.

That said, we are ok with them to have Instagram accounts specifically for athletics purposes. My son is a 4:20 miler as a sophomore and my daughter plays for a top regional club soccer team. Both have aspirations to compete collegiately. It's valuable these days to cultivate a social presence, just like it can be valuable for working professionals to maintain a LinkedIn profile. But they are clear -- and we are clear with them -- that these social accounts are for "business" purposes, not for socialization, and they understand. We've been beating the drum about the risks of social media for years and they see inappropriate and out of control use by some of their peers, so I generally feel pretty comfortable.

The biggest hazard with Snapchat as the comms channel for high schoolers is that it creates an almost constant string of intrusive push notifications, especially if your network is sufficiently large (like an entire high school class year). For easily distractible kids it can be insufferable.

[femiagbabiaka]

It’s way more ubiquitous now than it was when I was using it in college in the 2010s. An underrated growth story IMO.

[_--__--__]

My extended family (mostly people in that late 20s through early 40s range) use a snapchat group to share the kind of videos of our kids that most would appreciate seeing but which really don't belong on normal social media

[lucyjojo]

for my family (20s to 80s) we use FamilyAlbum from Mixi. It's quite nice.

[matthewdgreen]

Yes they’re using Snapchat. But based on the data points from my kids and their friends, they hate hate hate the AI and think it’s creepy.

[decimalenough]

Yup, they are, their DAUs are steadily marching up.

[nukem222]

I'm assuming they've filled the app with ads by now?

[parliament32]

Surprisingly, there aren't any, unless you go doom-scroll the celebrity stories. The only thing I get is an occasional IAP upsell to their premium features.

[danesparza]

Sick burn.

[skyyler]

Wasn't a burn, I was actually asking.

[SunlitCat]

Well, personally I started out with gemini (when it still was called bard or something like that) but switched over to a paid ChatGPT subscription.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

That's an understandable switch, but I expect that if you were starting today with something much more capable, such as Gemini 2.0 Flash, or Anthropic's Claude, you'd probably find no reason to explore alternatives.

[paul7986]

As of now and past six to 8 months Im a happy GPT pro subscriber. I tried Gemini and asked it show images from Google images (a few weeks ago) of XYZ and pathetically it said it couldnt do it but GPT can.

Rooting for GPT and hoping for a GPT phone where the lock screen is where you interface with your AI Assistant / Agent. It also interfaces with other AI Agents (businesses, family members, friends, etc) to get things done for you automagically. You can skin your AI Assistant / Agent to look like whoever you want.

[tehjoker]

can confirm that when i wanted to try using deepseek inertia kept me using chatgpt for a few weeks longer

[rtkwe]

There's a lot less network effects in the chatbot space. It doesn't really matter what your friends are using so it's way easier to get people to switch by being better. Not saying there's no benefit to ChatGPT's position but it's not like Google+ vs Facebook because they don't need spontaneous mass adoption to make it useful to people like they did with Google+.

[crazygringo]

For general knowledge questions, sure.

But there are going to be huge network effects in terms of your personal data, which includes communications with friends.

If you use Gmail/Google Calendar/Docs/Drive, and ChatGPT can't tell you anything, but Gemini helps you with all the data in your life... that's a gigantic network effect.

Network effects aren't just about friends. They're about file formats, productivity suites, and ultimately compatibility.

[rtkwe]

That's a point in Google's favor but it's not really what "network effect" (traditionally) means.

Network effect is a specific term about the increasing utility of a service as more people use compatible services, it's explicitly about users other than yourself.

You're describing something more like having an integrated ecosystem a la Apple's walled garden where things work great with other Apple products (notification hand off etc).

[nukem222]

> but Gemini helps you with all the data in your life

None of my data is in google's cloud (for obvious reasons) except gmail, which contains far less of my life than you might think. Most of my friends outside of work use icloud. google will need to figure out how to access other silos if they want their chatbot to move forward.

Google has no access to what music I like, what movies I like, what books I read, who I am friends with and why, what values I have and why I pursue them. That's a rough place to start as this is the center of my personality.

Gmail is google's ace in the hole. If they can't figure out how to exploit that gemini will just be the android version of siri (which is already the case, right?)

[crazygringo]

Well sure, that's why Siri is going to hold an advantage with iCloud users (if Apple can catch up), and Microsoft will have an advantage with Office users. Those are the three major ecosystems.

[nukem222]

A slight advantage, sure, but apple is trapped by the same thing. Neither of their products actually required full buy in of the ecosystem to exploit until now. It was just nice (eg airpods have a nicer pairing experience than other bluetooth devices—infuriating, but ultimately ignorable)

[xnx]

> This looks like the Google+ vs Facebook story all over again.

Lock-in and network effects with social networks are very strong. Facebook, Twitter, and eBay only have to be good-enough.

Lock-in and network effects with current AI tools is almost zero. People will readily switch to Gemini once they realize it can do their work better.

[famouswaffles]

>Lock-in and network effects with current AI tools is almost zero. People will readily switch to Gemini once they realize it can do their work better.

Lock-in for search engines should be near zero and yet people won't bother switching to or even trying potentially better options. At the end of the day, people don't leave what they are used to easily.

[weatherlite]

I don't think there's a better search engine than Google, there I said it. Sure it's filled with spam, but I find it hard to believe something like Bing is more likely to give me what I'm searching for than Google. Its more than just a search engine, I use it for routes (maps), bus and train times, finding businesses close to me etc etc. It became a whole ecosystem that's not going to be that easy for a rival to outperform. The few times I tried Bing it looked very low quality compared to Google.

And even if Bing improved immensely, it just took them way too long. 20 years after Google is just too late to the party. I have really formed a habit quite strong now that I need a compelling reason to switch to Bing/Whatever - and what is that reason again?

This is simply not the case with ChatGPT / Gemini. They are likely equal now, so Google was perhaps 1-2 years late to the party. I think many people haven't formed a strong habit yet of which A.I to use.

[famouswaffles]

I don't think there's anything better either but i haven't actually tested any other search engine in years so what do i know right ?

Unless a search engine blows google out of the water and gets everyone talking, switching won't even be on the table. Why bother switching for something that is just as good or slightly better if you've been using your current option for a while ? Consumers are much stickier than that.

[chubot]

This is largely a browser UI and browser control issue though

There’s a reason google pays both Apple and Mozilla billions to be the default on Safari and Firefox. And why MS makes its own browser, as a complement to its search engine

So yeah I wonder if this same dynamic plays out for AI, or if something else happens. I guess Google hopes it will, and that’s one reason they show AI answers about the search results now

[crazygringo]

> Lock-in for search engines should be near zero and yet people won't bother switching to or even trying potentially better options.

What are you talking about? People use Google because they choose it.

They change search from the Bing default as one of the first things they do on a new machine.

For most users there isn't anything better than Google. The niche search needs that might lead a HN user to an alternative engine don't apply.

[famouswaffles]

>What are you talking about? People use Google because they choose it. They change search from the Bing default as one of the first things they do on a new machine. For most users there isn't anything better than Google. The niche search needs that might lead a HN user to an alternative engine don't apply.

I'm not sure what's hard to understand with what i'm saying? You think the users changing the default from Bing did so after a lengthy evaluation of quality ? No, they did it because they're used to Google. It's that simple. It's not even about whether google is truly the best or not.

[crazygringo]

> No, they did it because they're used to Google. It's that simple. It's not even about whether google is truly the best or not.

Except it's not. Remember how everyone switched to Altavista in 1996 because it was so much better? Remember how Yahoo took over in 1999 because it was so much better? Remember how people switched to Google in 2003 because it was so much better?

History shows people actually do switch search engines when there's a better one. And they do so quickly. I mean, look at how quickly people adopted ChatGPT for some of the things they used to do with Google!

They're not switching away from Google now for regular serach simply because there isn't a better one for most people.

You have zero evidence for claiming it's because they're "used to Google". People didn't stay with Altavista or Yahoo because they were "used to them". So why would that be any different for Google? The answer it that it's not.

[avgd]

I say this as someone who has tried to switch away from google many times because I dislike google as a company : there is no better search engine out there. There hasn't been for as long as google has existed. Every time I make something like bing or yandex my default search engine I end up getting frustrated with a niche search and type google.com and after typing google.com too many times I get fed up and bring it back as default.

And the two competing search engines I mentioned are pretty much all there is. Other names like duckduckgo aren't real search engines, they are just a frontend for another search engine (DDG uses bing). There just isn't many out there willing to front the bill for crawling and indexing the whole web.

People trying to explain away google's success solely from a marketing standpoint are arguing from bad faith.

[famouswaffles]

>Except it's not. Remember how everyone switched to Altavista in 1996 because it was so much better? Remember how Yahoo took over in 1999 because it was so much better? Remember how people switched to Google in 2003 because it was so much better?

You already have the answer here you said it 3 times - 'so much better'. People switched because it was 'so much better'. Not on par, not slightly better, just so ahead of the competition, it became a talking point all on its own.

If this mass isn't reached then why would you switch ? How would you even know that Search Engine 26 is quite a bit better for most of your queries ?

Do you genuinely think most people are performing lengthy evaluations before they switch default back to google ? so how do they know Bing or whatever isn't better for them ? The answer is that they don't. And it doesn't matter because unless something blows it out of the water and gets people talking then people will not switch.

Familiarity and Trust is basically branding and that's a huge reason people stay on platforms even when there are no network effects.

[matt_heimer]

With Google Photos and YouTube they should have had enough leverge to build a social platform based on photo and video sharing. The implementation, marketing and commitment just wasn't there.

[babelfish]

> once they realize it can do their work better Citation needed? Google's Deep Research tool is considerably worse than OpenAI's (I haven't tried Perplexity or Groks). They don't have anything like Operator. I pay for Gemini and it's feature within the productivity suite almost never work the way I want them to. They can still win, but OpenAI is eating their lunch.

[xnx]

Probably varies with individual use case, but Gemini 2.5 currently #1 here: https://lmarena.ai/?leaderboard=

[j_maffe]

Chatbots are not social media platforms. Also the vast majority of expected revenue from this industry is not from casual paying users, it's from other companies who will optimize for performance and price.

[bossyTeacher]

That makes Google and Microsoft the winners then. It's not out yet but once Microsoft manages to fully catch to the state of the art in LLM, OpenAI wo't be needed and that will definitely be the final nail in the coffin for them

[riku_iki]

Chatbots are clear replacement for search with all implications and huge revenue for winner.

[nukem222]

How do you figure? Chatbots don't cite their sources (unless you explicitly set up an RAG); search engines do. What value does the former have?

Chatbots seem more useful for stuff like generating filler and changing tone.

[riku_iki]

topic is revenue stream, so chatbots can become major revenue surface, and chatbot winner brand will get most revenue stream, while search engines will be just some switchable backend.

[kridsdale1]

Right. A few years from now these will all have figured out insidious ad insertion techniques and the economics will be very different.

[Spooky23]

Google is focused on enterprises. They’re like Apple where PR disasters hurt them — if your Google phone tells you to eat rocks or writes fanfic porn, that’s a huge deal. Consumer is a risk to them.

ChatGPT and Grok are edgier and they are just burning cash - any attention is good.

I wouldn’t underestimate them. Microsoft’s shitshow with Azure (they have like 9 different Azures) makes delivery difficult (some Azure clouds delayed AI tech for 6-9 months) when they are relying on constrained product from Nvidia. They also have some level of exposure to the OpenAI circus and its included Musk v. Sam Altman drama.

Google has a much better supply chain and return on asset story, which is a big deal if you’re selling shovels.

[thorncorona]

I wouldn't underestimate Microsoft either. They are much more successful at enterprise than Google or ChatGPT, and are one of few companies to compete successfully in almost every tech vertical.

[Spooky23]

Agreed. But Microsoft is IBM. They are slow, and they have to herd a lot of cats with their enterprise customers, internal sacred cows, and partners.

3-4 years they’ll have the killer app for Office, then they rocket ship.

[matt_heimer]

Google is so bad at marketing. Gemini should have be an internal only name. Google's ChatGPT should be branded as Google AI or GoogleGPT and it should be in the Google app.

Google+ was particularly awful. They had to break the established search behavior of using + and - to indicate required and excluded terms. Now we have quotes for required and - for excluded? It should have been Google Social.

The thing that is Google One would have been better often with the Google Plus name.

Don't even get me started on Google Chat/Messenger....

[pb7]

Google's branding strategy historically has been terrible, I grant you that, but Gemini is not an example of it.

[ludwik]

Can you elaborate?

[overfeed]

Not parent, but "Google AI" is overloaded - Google has a many AI products that won't be "Google AI". "Gemini" refers to a specific set of capabilities, which are a subset of Google AI efforts[1]. Imagine Apple developing a new, non-iPad slate and branding it the "Apple Tablet".

Granted, Google's AI strategy is still muddled, e.g. Gemini is maybe replacing Google Assistant in some scenarios, but I'm able to express my meaning clearly with Gemini in the preceding sentence, as opposed to "Google AI is replacing Google Assistant - which is Google's AI assistant"

1. Gemma, Flash, anything Google Deepmind develops would be Google AI products that won't fall under the "Google AI" branding

[eitally]

Gemini has already replaced Assistant for Pixel users and on modern Nest devices. In the current Android Auto beta, it's also replaced it there, too.

The thing that confuses me, though, is the fact that they use the Gemini branding for both the dev-oriented products you can license via Google Cloud, as well as the consumer facing AI interfaces, and then also for the ties into Workspace products. ... but then there are standalone AI products (or is a feature?) like Notebook LM that aren't associated with Gemini.

[pb7]

It's a great name. "G" matches the company, it's easy to say, it's a known word, it sounds good spoken, and the word itself has many subjective interpretations as to what it might mean (e.g. gemini = twins = you and AI).

Same reason that it's Alexa and not Amazon Assistant, Siri and not Apple Assistant, etc.

Google Pay/Android Pay/Google Wallet/Android Wallet/Pay Pay/Yap Yap should be the focus of our ire.

[stalfosknight]

Siri was not named by Apple. It was an independent app that Apple bought out in 2010.

[WrongAssumption]

Entirely irrelevant. They could have renamed it after buying it and chose not too.

[weatherlite]

I don't buy this at all. People will use what works well and is cheap. ChatGPT was there first, but then DeepSeek came so everyone was excited about that and talking about that. Now Gemini 2.5 looks really really good, better than ChatGPT some say. This is going to increase Gemini usage for sure.

I don't think ChatGPT has any moat here. No one does actually.

[aurareturn]

They have some moat. I'm not sure what it is. But they do.

I've been a ChatGPT subscriber since the beginning. I've been a subscriber even though Sonnet 3.5 and others have surpassed GPT4o. I'm not sure why I don't switch.

I think it's the combination of better UX (Claude has poor UX apps), cool interesting new features, and having (limited) access to the top models.

[weatherlite]

OK, I agree with this, they have a bit of a moat but nothing particularly strong. They definitely don't deserve a 130B valuation imo, I'm expecting subscription prices to be pushed down since everyone and his sister are going to offer similarly strong models.

[aurareturn]

I disagree. I think their valuation is justified. They're growing very fast.

Subscription prices won't go down. If anything, they seem to be going up.

I don't think having the smartest model or the model that is benching the best is going to knock ChatGPT out at this point. It's the whole thing. The function calling, the tool use, the ecosystem, etc.

[weatherlite]

> I don't think having the smartest model or the model that is benching the best is going to knock ChatGPT out at this point.

It will be a question of price and performance. Many many companies aren't on board any A.I flow yet and they will need to choose what to do in the coming years. Those who chose OpenAI might stick regardless of what happens because it may be a hassle to switch but I kinda doubt its that sticky. It's not like moving clouds. And anyway we are really only in the beginning. OpenAI had a very nice head start which is over now, I will be very surprised if their market share doesn't drop significantly in the coming 2-3 years.

[aurareturn]

I just feel like it's not that ChatGPT's 4o is the smartest. It's the capabilities such as document uploading, deep research, image generation, voice chat, etc that give them the stickiness.

I know 4o isn't the smartest but I still had almost no desire to switch to Claude or Google.

[mattlondon]

I am not convinced that many people outside of tech circles knows about ChatGPT. "AI" sure, but ChatGPT I am unconvinced. Either way, I am pretty confident Google will "win" long term since Gemini will be the AI built into search, YouTube, android, Gmail, chrome, etc etc in the consumer side. It's going to be there when the billions of people are using Google products so people will just use it there. The average person won't go out of their way to open a separate app/site with a lower-performing (as of today) and standalone/siloed/isolated AI that doesn't have access to their data/apps just because they recognise the name.

[mjamesaustin]

My sister graduated college last summer. She said every single person she knew was using ChatGPT to write essays within a week of its initial release.

I would argue it's pretty well-known outside of tech circles.

[Nullabillity]

That's exactly what a plagiarist would say to justify it to themself.

[SR2Z]

Plagarism is kind of the default nowadays in college though (I did not plagarize, but was a TA who caught a lot of it)

[ketzo]

The linked article can tell you that the ChatGPT app has been downloaded more than 600M times, so approx 1 in 13 humans has actually downloaded ChatGPT to their phone already, let alone heard about it.

They have WAUs in the 300m ballpark — average people already are going out of their way to open a standalone AI.

[matthewdgreen]

What are there DAUs? I occasionally open up Claude or ChatGPT just to ask a random question, maybe even once a week. But I’m incredibly uninvested in either brand. I use Google hundreds of times every day.

[staticman2]

Does "Global app installs" the term used at the link, mean installs by unique human beings the way you are using it?

[coliveira]

You're incorrect, people nowadays equate AI with ChatGPT. Google may have AI in its results, but people will never separate the two products. However, with ChatGPT, it is synonymous with AI chat in the mind of most people.

[rs186]

Where does your confidence come from? Do you have any evidence to prove this?

If you paid the slightest attention to social media, news, TikTok or just talked to regular people, you would know ChatGPT is a much much bigger brand name than Gemini. Uber driver told me how he used ChatGPT to help the other day job he had.

[annodomini2019]

ChatGPT is the 7th most visited website in the world...

[jeromegv]

> I am not convinced that many people outside of tech circles

In Canada, I have had countless conversations with people outside of tech circles (mostly in their 30s) where THEY naturally bring up ChatGPT. It's wild how popular it got very quickly for all kind of use cases.

[lone_onion]

https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone

'nuff said?

(ChatGPT is #2 in the free apps list)

[koakuma-chan]

From my experience people use "ChatGPT" to refer to LLMs in general.

[vosper]

How many of those people are using an LLM other than one supplied by OpenAI?

[selectodude]

I do. "Claude" doesn't really tell people much. Anthropic, even less.

[cruffle_duffle]

Claude is an awful product name, too. I hate telling people that I generally use this thing called "Claude" which "is like ChatGPT but better".

[koakuma-chan]

I see what you're trying to say, but I've personally been warned many times by normies "do not use ChatGPT," as if it would be fine if I used Claude instead.

[mprev]

Isn’t this more like Teams vs Slack or Zoom?

Consumer brand recognition isn’t the issue. Bundling with Workspace might be.

[stormfather]

But Google is the household name. All they have to do is bring Gemini inside Google before people stop using traditional search.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Too bad Google managed to burn almost all goodwill they had 20 years ago. I am amoung many people who would use their AI products only as the last resort, just like I do with search and browsers.

[Spooky23]

I have a colleague who is still pissed off about Google Reader. Nobody cares. The happy days of fun times with Google Labs in 2005 are the equivalent of my dad missing his 1965 Firebird when I was high school. 60% of the audience here doesn’t even know what you’re talking about.

If you’re doing serious work in a fast mover space and are refusing to understand a major player, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

I understand this particular major player quite well: I have learned to liberate my company from dependency on their products: you never know how long they are going to last.

[coliveira]

And this is correct, because if Google takes over AI, it will kill it just like they're killing search results. For Google, selling ads is THE most important thing, so they will relegate AI results to a little corner of the page where no-one will care about.

[browningstreet]

They had that. Gemini was inside the Google app. Now it's its own app. So not sure how their thinking aligns with your suggestion.

[stormfather]

Clearly they understand they need to integrate Gemini into search but it wasn't cheap or accurate enough yet. Do you really think THE search and AI giant is going to ignore AI search?

[rdtsc]

> ChatGPT is already a household name, and nobody has even heard about Gemini.

Just yesterday I polled my household, the 8 year old knew about ChatGPT and "China's R1". The teenager knew ChatGPT and Google's was a bit hard to remember but eventually they did remember "Gemini", however they didn't know about R1. Both kids consider Siri and Alexa in the same category for Apple and Amazon, respectively. They don't know what Meta/Facebook have at all.

[basch]

Chatbots are the beginning not the end. As it commoditizes, and chat becomes a feature of every interface, what will matter is who has the best overall design or suite of interfaces. Things like NotebookLM and whiteboards will be infinitely more useful than just a chat window. Chat alone doesn’t have the spatial organization of putting thoughts into a mind map or drawing.

[creato]

I have family members that when they say "ChatGPT" they actually mean google's AI overview in the search results. The term ChatGPT might just be the Kleenex or Xerox of this market.

[Minor49er]

Google+ was never really competing with Facebook. The goal of Google+ was to unite accounts between Google's services and to get people to provide their personal details such as their real full names. In that light, G+ was a success

[kspacewalk2]

Meh. There are no network effects, switching is 100% frictionless - compare and contrast with ditching Facebook and limiting facebook-ey social media interactions with whichever 1.5 of your friends are on Google+.

Just the fact that it can read my emails and set reminders, while being broadly the same quality as ChatGPT, was enough for me to switch. I no longer pay for the pro, and hence can't use the integration features, but I just stuck to Gemini and almost never use ChatGPT anymore.

[robocat]

Network effects are not the only way people lock into a product - it is just the first thing that comes to most people's minds.

Familiarity and trust are really important. Commonly called branding.

[kspacewalk2]

Familiarity and trust are really important when there's a cost to switching (buy this $35000 car or that one), when training is non-trivial, or when you have privacy concerns. I don't see that mattering at all when it comes to, say, ChatGPT vs Gemini. Google has a much more recognizable brand, the quality of the results and the interface itself are essentially identical, trust is not a factor at all (I assume both are collecting my data regardless of what they say).

[dyauspitr]

There’s no lock in like in social networks. People will migrate to what is cheap and powerful.

[therein]

ChatGPT may be a household name but it is noticeably inferior. I haven't encountered a single ChatGPT subscriber that didn't cancel their OpenAI subscription in favor of a Claude or Grok one after a single session with them.

ChatGPT is the most spineless chatbot out there. It stands for nothing, has no confidence in any claims it makes. It will apologize and backtrack on a whim. But with Claude and Grok, you can't just tell it it is wrong and get it to apologize. You actually have to have a point, the chatbot will defend its perspective if challenged without basis.