[Analemma_]

Because they make a shitload of money by arranging Amazon search results in a certain way, selling favorable placement on those results, and inserting upsells ("Try Amazon Prime!") into the checkout process, all of which are at risk if Chat-GPT becomes a frontend to buying on Amazon. (Note that they are already vigorously going after Perplexity for trying to be an Amazon frontend)

In general, Big Tech will never allow itself to be just the backend to a service where another company controls the frontend and the relationship to the customer. That's how you get commoditized and ultimately replaced.

Examples: you cannot get a streaming box with universal search ("which streaming service has show X? Just hit play and go"): the streaming services staunchly refuse to provide the APIs to do so. Nor is there interoperability across messaging apps to let users supply their own frontend clients. AI and MCP will go much the same way, it will be locked down as soon as it presents a business model threat.

[glpgeFwac]

Agree on your overall point, minor note that Apple TV does decent at being a streaming box with universal search. The benefit of buying into a walled garden is that sometimes platform owner and user interests align.

[rco8786]

It's not just Apple. Every major platform has universal search now.

[rco8786]

> all of which are at risk if Chat-GPT becomes a frontend to buying on Amazon.

Can you explain to me how this is different than the literal world we are currently in, where Google and web search serves as a frontend to buying $billions of products on Amazon already?

> you cannot get a streaming box with universal search ("which streaming service has show X? Just hit play and go")

You've clearly not used a Roku TV, Apple TV, or Amazon Fire Stick lately :). Universal search with "click and play" and deep links into individual streaming services is table stakes for streaming TV now. Your statement here could not be more wrong, honestly.