Inference is cash positive: it's research that takes up all the money. So, if you can get ahold of enough users, the volume eventually works in your favour.
The idea is war of attrition and then as your potential competitors run out of money and it costs too much for a new entrant, you raise your prices to be profitable and/or enshittify your product.
Right, but unlike with social products (where the network of users is essential) or transportation/food delivery (where providers will follow the user volume) I just don’t see any stickiness benefit for OpenAI. A user’s conversation history is the only potentially valuable bit, but I think most users treat their ChatGPT history like their Google search history; disposable.