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I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

99helpers.com

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Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#171

Post by hinkley »

simianwords wrote: post #65

It’s strange to see extreme amount of hysteria on this. There’s enough market competition to not allow this. If ChatGPT is doing it then just move to Claude. If all are doing it then surely opensource models are a good alternative. But i think leaning into the hysteria provides some comfort

All the competition now is VC dollars. And the last round that OpenAI and Anthropic landed will probably be their last at favorable rates.

Oxide just closed a funding round they took solely to be able to guarantee their longevity as a vendor in order to land sales. That feels a lot like a harbinger of the easy money drying up very soon, and trying to get in before the door is locked.

The valuations are ridiculous now, which means the expectations are as well. Expectations are expensive.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#172

Post by hinkley »

nickk81 wrote: post #106
simianwords wrote: post #65

It’s strange to see extreme amount of hysteria on this. There’s enough market competition to not allow this. If ChatGPT is doing it then just move to Claude. If all are doing it then surely opensource models are a good alternative. But i think leaning into the hysteria provides some comfort

You can still have 10 different providers with advertising. Although I agree more competition will act as a counter to spoiling the experience with advertising.

It won’t when the money runs out.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#174

Post by neves »

aduty wrote: post #28

You forgot the part where they charge you to get rid of the ads but then the ads come back anyway so you're paying to be the product.

Also forgot the part where they start to disguise that an ad is really an ad. The ad is just melted in the content.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#175

Post by hinkley »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #67
amelius wrote: post #47

I asked it to write a program. But that program itself contained no ads. I guess there are still improvements to be made.

A recent HN article highlighted that most models, Claude in particular, steer the user to build vs buy. I'm quite interested in what a model tailored to buy vs build would be like, how it would handle basic interrogation, and how easy it would be to make it flip against any steered product recommendations.

Once the ad dollars are factored in they’ll tune for buy versus build.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#176

Post by hinkley »

nickk81 wrote: post #40
goalieca wrote: post #35

Pretty crazy and no doubt a lot of these patterns will find their way in more subtly. The total global ad revenue for online is massive at nearly 1T. Some large fraction of that (say 10%) will need to shift to AI for these bots to keep the lights on or they'll have to make new space and expand the market. Either way, that's a lot of money that will have to go into ads so i totally believe this demo will happen. I don…

Right now, the major AI providers are spending Investment $$$s, this will change when they need to become profitable.

And several of them now need to make a trillion dollars.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#177

Post by SoftTalker »

WarmWash wrote: post #102
simianwords wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

explain the dynamics of how enshittification would work here?

People stay on the shitty platform because it is convenient and still does what they need. See extreme-enshitification-of-already-shitty Windows vs free Linux.

Linux is becomming enshitified, at least the big distros. Snaps, some would argue systemd, wayland, etc. Continually requiring more and more resources just to install and run.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#178

Post by hinkley »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #36
nickk81 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will happen slowly over time: 1) start with a notification that ads are coming (already there) 2) adding 1 ad to start with 3) slowly increase ads 4) make it a huge part of the experience (like Google now)

2) Go elsewhere.

3) Private equity buys the company, and turns the screws on the sticky users until blood comes out of the tap.

4) eulogies on the front page of HN

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#179

Post by hinkley »

wibbily wrote: post #148
lateforwork wrote: post #132

When Google AdWords first launched its text ads appeared only on the right-hand side of the Google search results page, separate from the main organic listings. See screenshot below. I expect ChatGPT ads will be similar. Ads won't be incorporated into the chat responses. https://pplx-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/pplx_search_ima...

> When Google AdWords first launched Exactly, they’ll be kept separate. For now.

Mmmm, frog soup!

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#180

Post by neves »

imglorp wrote: post #149
nickk81 wrote: post #2

We all know the pattern: something useful launches → it becomes popular → it needs to make money → ads everywhere. AI chat is heading the same way. So I built a fully interactive demo that shows what an ad-supported AI chatbot could actually look like: https://99helpers.com/tools/ad-supported-chat It includes every monetization pattern you can think of: - Pre-chat interstitials (like YouTube pre-rolls, but for chat)…

The darkest monetization is biased output from the bot. Tech question? Steer you to its cloud. Medical question? Steer you towards a sponsored treatment. Or maybe the mechanism of injury needs this lawyer to compensate? Oh and I infer from your chat history you're about to expect a child. That house is probably too small now, so our realtor in that neighborhood can help!

The worst ad is the one you don't know is an ad. It will be presented as a definitive answer.

They are persuasion machines

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