[ar0]

I think the big difference is that Google is free: everyone is using Google because it doesn’t cost anything and for a long time was the best search engine out there. I am sure that if Google would suddenly charge a few dollars per month for access, Bing market share would explode overnight, because it would become “good enough but cheaper”.

With the AI models, using a model that is “good enough but cheaper” is already an option.

[safety1st]

There's no reason that a sizeable portion of LLM usage can't and won't end up free/ad-sponsored. Cutting edge stuff for professional use will probably be monetized via subscription or API credits for a long time to come. But running an older and less resource intensive model works just fine for tasks like summarization. These models will just become another feature in a "free" product that people pay for by watching or clicking ads.

I imagine the split will look a lot like b2b vs b2c in other technologies, b2b customers tend to be willing to pay for tech when it offers a competitive advantage, reduces their operating costs etc. b2c customers mostly just guzzle free slop.

[Marsymars]

It's actually pretty bonkers when you think about how basically every cutting edge professional you deal with is getting ads for all of their top search results for all of their work.

(Not quite "every", but outside of tech, most professional workplaces don't support ad blocking or Kagi.)