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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

#211

Post by Forgeties79 »

twoodfin wrote: post #207
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

Reminds me of those absurd “selling web sites & apps like cable channels” graphics from the Net Neutrality wars. This one apparently originated at Reddit, natch: https://cordcutting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/quink.png

I don’t think it was all that absurd. IIRC Portugal was already flirting with a system like that at the time.

ISP’s wanted websites to pay them a fee in order to be accessible or at least not throttled, while also wanting customers to pay a fee to access sites/access them without being throttled. At least that’s how I remember it, it has been quite some time since I really went down that rabbit hole.

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

#212

Post by Scoundreller »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #157
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.

Paying to get rid of ads is paying for the privilege of doing their market segmentation for them. It's paying to segment oneself into the upper echelons of the market. People who pay to avoid ads have a lot of disposable income, the value of their attention increases. I wish uBlock Origin would incorporate AI features too. It could automatically detect brand names and product placement and blank it all out. Works on…

> Paying to get rid of ads is paying for the privilege of doing their market segmentation for them.

My local newspaper used to be wide-open. I happily subscribed but never logged in.

Then they launched a paywall, so I unsubscribed. I didn't want to be a part of their logged-in paid premium user dragnet.

The phone-call to cancel was a bit confusing for the CSR.

"May I ask why are you cancelling?"

Me: "Oh, because of the paywall"

CSR: "Oh, that's just a technical issue, we can help you with that"

Me: "Nono, you don't understand, I'm cancelling because there is _a_ paywall"

I doubt my "reason for cancelling" got coded correctly.

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

#213

Post by Aurornis »

makerofthings wrote: post #23

It's quite hard to tell what is satirical AI Ads and what is this 99helpers.com site, which is also really covered in pushy messages and trying hard to sell me something. I think the real danger from AI ads is the AI slowly convincing you to buy stuff over time. It's going to be super effective with the less technically adept.

> It's quite hard to tell what is satirical AI Ads and what is this 99helpers.com site, which is also really covered in pushy messages and trying hard to sell me something.

The interesting thing about this website is that it’s for a product that uses AI chat bots for customer support. This is something that Hacker News traditionally hates. The website is built like an over the top SaaS landing page from the 2010s.

Embracing ragebait is an interesting way to trick audiences who normally wouldn’t like your product to start sharing links to your domain.

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

#214

Post by laserbeam »

I would honestly expect AI ads to be invisible, and for them to just be injected by the provider as part of the prompt. For example, you ask for something about firefox, but the AI tells you that firefox has a nasty ugly way to solve your problem and it would be easier to install chrome.

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

#215

Post by siriusastrebe »

tencentshill wrote: post #192
svilen_dobrev wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the real danger from AI (ads) is the AI slowly convincing you to ${GOAL:-buy stuff} over time. (man bash: ${X:-abcde} means use value of X else abcde by default ) where GOAL can be anything one may be persuaded into. Choosing $15 burger over $7, brand X over brand Y, notion of X wholesale (to EV or not to EV), Elections, climate-this-or-that, ... People are massively using it as search engine. So it does not need t…

Advertisers don't have time for subtle influence campaigns. They need $x sales, this quarter, with this budget for ad spend. Put a big red banner somewhere and make it happen.

However, nation states will absolutely pay for subtle, emotion evoking, destabilizing messaging with no timeline for success

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

#216

Post by Aurornis »

zeta0134 wrote: post #7

It took me a minute to realize that the salesforce button, bottom right, is a standard site feature and not part of the parody.

The product this site is selling is AI chatbots for customer support.

HN would normally hate everything about this site and this product. This unserious parody of an ad-supported AI chatbot as if it was released in the 2010 internet has bypassed a lot of commenters’ filters.

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

#217

Post by rel_ic »

laserbeam wrote: post #214

I would honestly expect AI ads to be invisible, and for them to just be injected by the provider as part of the prompt. For example, you ask for something about firefox, but the AI tells you that firefox has a nasty ugly way to solve your problem and it would be easier to install chrome.

Ditto. AI has the power to make you believe stuff without you noticing, why would they bother with garish ads when they could make you think it was YOUR idea to buy Chlorox?

I guess maybe the garish colors could increase your suggestibility indirectly maybe?

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

#218

Post by EFreethought »

Muhammad523 wrote: post #86
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)…

Maybe people will start running local models on their phones to avoid this, i've seen a couple of apps for android that do just that.

Maybe there will be models-as-a-service, MaaS as well. Pay extra for no ads. Like Proton Mail vs Gmail.

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

#219

Post by thaumasiotes »

I see a lot of assumptions that ad support lowers the quality of the product.

There are two obvious historical examples to look at:

1. Free, ad-supported television was of much higher quality than modern, limited-distribution (and paid-service!) television.

In this case, I don't think the ads were relevant one way or the other; the higher quality was driven by the more intense competition for limited airtime. Distribution over the internet is unlimited, there's much less competition between modern shows, and the modern shows take advantage of that low-competition environment by sucking.

2. Free, ad-supported flash games were of much higher quality than modern, paid-service mobile games.

Here the ad support is clearly causal to the higher quality. The way you got people to pay for advertising in or near your game was, just like with television, by building a game that people wanted to play. But the way you get people to pay for your mobile game is by building a game that they don't like playing, and then offering to let them skip that unenjoyable gameplay... for a fee.

https://foxtrot.com/2014/03/23/candyfarmdungeon/

So it's not obvious to me that an ad-supported product is necessarily bad, or even worse than it would be without the ads.

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

#220

Post by planb »

I understand the message this tries to tell but this is not how it will look. This is how dying cash cows look. This isn’t even dangerous, it’s just ugly and wouldn’t be used by many people.

The real thing will look like ChatGPT. It will even answer WAY faster, because every microsecond means real money. The answers will sound real. They will even be useful. But maximally engaging. Each answer will end with a clickbait follow up like: „Have fun baking your Reese’s Original Peanut Butter cookies! Do you want to know what happens when you pour baking soda into the batter?“

I really hoped for that experience when clicking the headline.

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