[rchaud]

Google launched in 1998 and were running ads by 2000. Considering how much more access to adtech product talent there is for OAI a quarter of a century on, what explains their hesitation to pick that route and make billions? After all they had billions avaiable to acquire designer bauble maker Jony Ive's company.

[delecti]

The first AI company to cram their product full of ads will get roasted over the coals for it. My guess is they're all playing chicken and waiting to be the second to do it. I'd also guess that they're all already thinking about ways to introduce it that will generate the least backlash.

Google could do it in 2000 because their search was legitimately so much better, and also because their ads were comparatively more relevant and unobtrusive than modern ads. In comparison, LLMs are relatively similar in performance unless you're picky enough that you're probably already paying and thus wouldn't be in the ad-supported tier.

That said, I wonder if ads are even lucrative enough to move the needle relative to how much training costs are increasing with each generation.

[bombcar]

People forget it took Google years of frog-boiling to get us to where we are now.

The first AI to insert blatant ads will be dumped for some other model overnight. Look at the Copilot "backlash" over their "product announcements".

[df2sdf]

Yep. Finally someone who knows how to think straight.

Google built up immense surplus and ate into it slowly.

OAI can't suddenly start cramming Ads as it fights to survive. Im sure they are employing questionable tactics to keep users hooked. Won't really work on a large enough user base to make the economics viable given the competition they face.