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by akoboldfrying 21 days ago
100%. This is the only part that I find surprising/confusing. Surely whoever blinks first incurs a massive reputational hit with the public (who don't think about this deeply enough to see that it was always inevitable), so why do that if you don't have to?

Perhaps the bright side from Google's POV is that it means that they can be the first to start wooing advertisers to their platform. First-mover advantage there might outweigh reputational damage with the public, especially if OpenAI follows suit with ads in 6 months.
1 comments
gomox 21 days ago
OpenAI starts from excellent UX and needs to prove that they can monetize all those empty pixels. They will no doubt succeed.

Google starts from horrid UX where every advertiseable pixel has been squeezed dry. Only way to go is down.

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lobocinza 21 days ago
You're confounding your subjective personal experience with the whole. Google can eat the cake and have it. They already are profitable, they already have scale, they already have market penetration, Google is already installed in 72% of mobile devices, they have cost efficiency due to TPUs, they probably have the best data, at least for serving ads. OpenAI has no chance in outcompeting Google, not in ad-based revenue.
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gomox 20 days ago
Importantly: OpenAI doesn't need to outcompete Google, it just needs to show it can bleed.

As to the rest of Google's dominant position, it's an advantage for sure, but every leading vendor whose products turned to shit went the way of the dodo one way or another.

And it's important to mention that this includes GAds, not just the loss leader (Search). They have been so good at squeezing advertisers dry that ROI is barely there in many categories.

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lobocinza 13 days ago
Who do you think will bleed when they race to enshitify their products? The company where users have lower expecations or the one where they have higher?
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gomox 10 days ago
Both, but the cat is out of the box with LLMs and Google no longer monopolizes the firehose of consumer purchasing intent even if OpenAI disappears tomorrow. Someone else will come up. I can ask a local LLM that I download for free what's a good lawnmower and it will tell me.

Google is no longer in control and therefore I believe it won't be able to command the crazy premiums it used to squeeze out of advertisers.

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