[carcabob]

If ads are clearly labeled as "ad" or "sponsored", and they only appear for free users, I think seeing ads is a pretty reasonable price to pay for those who want to use the service for free.

If they're not labeled, or are shown even to paying users, I think that's a problem.

[gpt5]

All ads start as clearly labeled and distinctive. Then via the magic of iteration and A/B testing they magically evolve to become visually indistinguishable from the rest of the content except for what’s required by law.

[HPsquared]

They'll eventually want to set it up so you read the sponsored content first, before seeing the tag saying it's an ad. You're more likely to absorb it then.

Especially if it's LLM-generated to fit with the context, the message will slip right into the mind. Then a little "(Sponsored)" at the bottom after you've already consumed the ad.

This is a bit like how ads are presented on X, they look like regular posts or replies but they usually feel off topic and you're thinking "huh, this doesn't fit the discussion". But LLMs will allow much more seamless and sneaky ads.

[MattDamonSpace]

You don’t say

https://9to5mac.com/2026/01/16/iphone-apple-app-store-search...

[musicale]

The iron law of encrapification: if a company can make more money by downgrading the user experience, it will. I imagine within Apple there were still people who advocated for a better, more transparent user experience, but ultimately they seem to have lost out to services people who just want to grab more money.

It's unfortunate because user experience was a core differentiating advantage for Apple that got them to where they are now.

[MarsIronPI]

IMO that's unavoidable when you're a public company beholden to shareholders who only care about short term stock prices.

OK, maybe not all shareholders are playing the short game, but I feel like a lot of them are.

[musicale]

I miss Tim Apple saying that there were things (accessibility) that Apple did that weren't based on ROI, and people who disagreed should get out of the stock.

[MarsIronPI]

> I miss Tim Apple saying that there were things (accessibility) that Apple did that weren't based on ROI, and people who disagreed should get out of the stock.

That sounds like a great way to get booted out of the CEO position.

[estimator7292]

I don't understand, Apple users did get a more "transparent" experience /s

[musicale]

Hahaha. On an unrelated note I immediately turned off Liquid Glass.

[amelius]

And of course they will start collecting more information about users, and build an entire intelligent data extraction system around it.

[oblio]

Come now, don't be evil!

[46493168]

>only appear for free users

Why would advertisers prefer people without money to people with money?

[RobertRies]

The question is flawed.

People who do not pay for ChatGPT often have money and prefer not to pay for for a subscription for several reasons including, but not exclusively: 1) They don't use ChatGPT often enough to justify it 2) They use alternatives primarily (a subset of #1) 3) They choose to spend their money on other things

[46493168]

How can an advertiser tell the difference? Which is a stronger signal of having money: paying for something, or not paying for something? Furthermore, with all those reasons, why would advertisers prefer those people in ChatGPT? Advertisers are trying to change your behavior, usually to spend money the way they want you to. If you’re rarely using the service and don’t easily part with money, you’re probably less worth persuing than… well the person who is the opposite of those things.

[seattle_spring]

Plenty of free users have lots of money. Not wanting to pay for something != not being able to pay for something.

[smogcutter]

But being willing to pay for something is a pretty good indicator for being willing to pay for other things too.

[tartoran]

Advertisers are salivating at paying users but paying users really don't want any advertising in their product because they're paying not to have any advertising. That does not mean somebody will not cave in and shove advertising in regardless.

[cudgy]

Create paid tiers WITH ads and premium paid tiers without add … this is the trend in streaming services

[tartoran]

Yikes, I think we'll need to go local.

[vb-8448]

Maybe at the beginning ... but with time? who knows ...

Btw, the end game is probably having ads in the llm context .... or directly in the llm training set.

[plagiarist]

Ads will lower the quality of the training data, an RAG is more likely. Pay to get your product's INSTALLME.md ranked under some specific semantic vectors.

[mmanfrin]

Every other iteration of a service that introduces a free ad-paid tier then ratchets it to bifurcation of premium in to 'premium' and 'premium with no ads' and then on and on.

[Havoc]

Just like Google at the beginning

[Hoasi]

My bet is that there will be ads for both groups. The paid group is arguably more valuable from an advertiser’s standpoint, and you can target heavy users with more granularity.

[jmugan]

I agree but I fear it won't stay that way. They boil us frogs slowly.

[Insanity]

They already confirmed it’ll also appear in the (lowest) paid tier.

[whiplash451]

The article says they will be clearly labeled and only for free accounts

[ehhthing]

They will also appear to users paying $8/month, not just free.

[dangus]

Sounds like the “pay enough to get better models but not remove ads” tier, kind of like the basic Netflix plan.

[hedora]

And if you ask chatgpt about major sponsors, a few years from now, it’ll honestly answer, even if that means badmouthing them, etc.

Also, everyone gets a free pony.

[Rebelgecko]

Sometimes it's a fallacy, but sometimes the slope really is slippery (see: cable TV, Netflix, etc)