[est31]

> But the problem is that Toys R Us is spending $15, 20, or maybe even $50 (who knows?) to sell a $10 toy.

It's like how Uber and Airbnb in the early days were burning loads of cash to build market share. People went to these services because they were cheaper. Then they would increase prices once they had a comfortable position.

OpenAI is also in a rapidly transforming field where there are a lot of cost reductions happening, efficiency gains etc. Compared to say Uber which didn't provide a lot of efficiency gains.

[chemmail]

A little bit, but the scale is another magnitude higher. I just saw a chart yesterday that shows Uber burning $18B, Tesla burning $9B, and Netflix burning 11B before reaching profitability. Open AI so far spent $218 Billion.

[fauigerzigerk]

The opportunity is disproportionately greater as well though.

Unfortunately that doesn't change the fact even a small miscalculation could have an enormous impact. We are approaching levels of risk comparable in size to the subprime crisis of 2008.

[SR2Z]

Is it? AI isn't going to be a winner take all market. Competition between American AI labs and even Chinese ones have seen to that.

The winners for AI will be the product companies, because soon enough the top-tier models are all going to have good enough performance that companies can just pick the cheapest. It'll be a race to the bottom for inference and OpenAI is very poorly placed to compete in that kind of thing.

[chrisandchris]

> It's like how Uber and Airbnb [...]

I disagree. It's like Uber and Airbnb in how they try to gain market share. Big difference: For Uber (and when it got big, basically everybody I know has used it once in a while) and Airbnb, you oaid for each transaction. With OpenAI, most peopme are on the free tier. And if there is something incredibly hard, it's converting free users to paid users. That will, IMHO, be the thong that blows (many) of the AI companies up. They won't ever reach a profit/loss-equality.

[RyanOD]

I agree with this. For the casual user, I feel AI is only a "nice to have".

[oblio]

> OpenAI is also in a rapidly transforming field where there are a lot of cost reductions happening, efficiency gains etc.

But also ever increasing quality requirements. So we can't possibly know at this point if this is a market with high margins or not.

[dangus]

And unlike Uber and Airbnb, OpenAI has no way to maintain marketshare. It’s a domain name with no moat.

Google has to pay Apple billions of dollars to make Google.com the default search engine. I just looked it up, over 15% of search revenue goes to pay to be the default search engine.

Every Android device defaults to Gemini.

Every Microsoft device defaults to Copilot.

I’d love to see where these cost reductions are. If costs are going to decrease rapidly why does OpenAI’s spending plan look so insane?

[abustamam]

> Every Android device defaults to Gemini.

> Every Microsoft device defaults to Copilot.

I don't think it's right to say that these devices "default" to their vendors' AI software when it's impossible to replace it with something else. Yes I can install Claude as a standalone app but I don't have the OS-wide integration that Gemini does for Android for example.

[tovej]

Where are the cost reductions exactly? Except for using AI hype as an excuse for layoffs. Can you showe a reference? Genuinely interested.

[tarsinge]

Uber and Airbnb have network effects. You cant increase price when there is no cost in switching.

[cylemons]

I dont see how network effects applies to Uber/Airbnb because nothing stops drivers/hosts from listing their property in multiple such apps

[matusp]

People continue using Airbnb because that's where the properties are listed. And owners keep listing properties because that's where the users are.

[cylemons]

My point was that nothing stops hosts from listing their properties in AirBnb as well as a competitor. Unless AirBnb penalizes delisting or enforces price parity I guess?

[enos_feedler]

Do you understand network effects? It’s not hand cuffs. I can also sell my rare baseball cards outside of ebay. But…