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Ads in ChatGPT

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Re: Ads in ChatGPT

#21

Post by mauvehaus »

It feels like this is opening the door to blurring the line between outright advertising and organic recommendations for products.

Like if I ask ChatGPT whether to use fiberglass or rock wool insulation, today I get an ad at the end of my answer, and in the future I’ll get "Dow Corning fiberglass insulation (affiliate link) is the recommended product for this application."

This feels like it’s trading on the goodwill of places like Reddit and the hopefully mostly genuine discussions of folk’s experiences that people trust to get a straight answer to their questions. Monetizing that goodwill by selling recommendations in a format that mimics a previously mostly trustworthy source seems likely to be the long-term play.

Yeah, I know. Not today. Eventually? Probably, over many incremental changes.

Turns out Randall Monroe missed this "opportunity" in otherwise predicting the future:

https://xkcd.com/810/

(Edited to get rid of "smart" quotes)

Re: Ads in ChatGPT

#22

Post by wizzwizz4 »

mauvehaus wrote: post #21

It feels like this is opening the door to blurring the line between outright advertising and organic recommendations for products. Like if I ask ChatGPT whether to use fiberglass or rock wool insulation, today I get an ad at the end of my answer, and in the future I’ll get "Dow Corning fiberglass insulation (affiliate link) is the recommended product for this application." This feels like it’s trading on the goodwill…

He'd already written about it: https://xkcd.com/632/

Re: Ads in ChatGPT

#24

Post by gruez »

ceejayoz wrote: post #15
gruez wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>just like Netflix. Eventually, we will have to pay a lot of money and still have ads too. This doesn't match reality. The "standard with ads" plan is $8.99 today, a dollar more than the ad-free "streaming only" plan launched in 2011. However factoring in inflation, the ad-free plan from 2011 would cost $11.74 today, which means the ad supported plan is still cheaper, even ignoring the price hikes.

At the same time, they keep hiking the other tiers, and cracking down on password sharing or kids off at college. These need to be factored in as well.

>they keep hiking the other tiers

That's why I compared against the 2011 prices. The ad-supported plan is still cheaper.

>cracking down on password sharing or kids off at college

Doesn't password sharing affect ad supported plans too? It basically has no effect on the comparison because it makes both the ad supported and non ad supported plans cheaper.

Re: Ads in ChatGPT

#25

Post by Xirdus »

raincole wrote: post #11

> Ads may appear for users on the Free... Ok > ...and Go plans Wtf lmao. Paying to watch ads is so normalized. Pathetic (the humanity as whole, not just OpenAI.)

Umm... remember how people in late last century used to pay $30-50/month for cable TV that was at least 25% ads by volume? And that's in last century dollars, comparable to $100 today.

Re: Ads in ChatGPT

#28

Post by wizzwizz4 »

gruez wrote: post #17
52-6F-62 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the humanity as whole I think this 'pay for ads you are just lucky to be here' thing is a distinctly American invention...

Source? It's not at all obvious given that it dates back to at least the days of newspapers.

The classified ads section in a newspaper is valuable, and you can discard it. (If you meant ads stuffed around articles: yes, that annoys me, but I'm also not familiar enough with the papers that do that to name one.)

Re: Ads in ChatGPT

#29

Post by cryptonym »

gruez wrote: post #13
cute_boi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is always how it starts, just like Netflix. Eventually, we will have to pay a lot of money and still have ads too.

>just like Netflix. Eventually, we will have to pay a lot of money and still have ads too. This doesn't match reality. The "standard with ads" plan is $8.99 today, a dollar more than the ad-free "streaming only" plan launched in 2011. However factoring in inflation, the ad-free plan from 2011 would cost $11.74 today, which means the ad supported plan is still cheaper, even ignoring the price hikes.

By your inflation-factoring-logic a fair regular plan should cost less than $12 and ad plan should be about $6. $9 is +50%

Ad supported plan can be a way to justify price hikes.

Maybe it does match reality.

Re: Ads in ChatGPT

#30

Post by gruez »

mauvehaus wrote: post #21

It feels like this is opening the door to blurring the line between outright advertising and organic recommendations for products. Like if I ask ChatGPT whether to use fiberglass or rock wool insulation, today I get an ad at the end of my answer, and in the future I’ll get "Dow Corning fiberglass insulation (affiliate link) is the recommended product for this application." This feels like it’s trading on the goodwill…

>It feels like this is opening the door to blurring the line between outright advertising and organic recommendations for products.

> ...

>Yeah, I know. Not today. Eventually? Probably, over many incremental changes.

Given that people have been making this argument since the days of search ads, has this actually come to pass? More than 2 decades after google, the max extent is sponsored results that look like organic results unless you're looking carefully.

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