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Tell HN: OpenAI has started putting ads on paid programs

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Re: Tell HN: OpenAI has started putting ads on paid programs

#41
post #34
post #5

Open AI attended the annual Cannes Ad Festival this year, alongside the usual Google, Meta etc They have 900m users and 50m of them are paying. Ads are inevitable. Surprised they put them on a paid plan user like you, but they are IPO'ing this year and need to show the best numbers possible.

That's some interesting economy there.. 850m users are not paying, so we'll fund the product by displaying advertisements to those users that do not pay. The advertisers spend money on those ads, but they know the audience doesn't want to pay.. but fortunately, their products might be free too, because they can also be funded by ads (served to the same audience). This intelligent design provides infinite money and in…

They people who don’t pay for ChatGPT still spend money on toothpaste and movies and cars and cereal and a million other things. There’s a reason the advertising industry exists.

Re: Tell HN: OpenAI has started putting ads on paid programs

#42
post #41
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's some interesting economy there.. 850m users are not paying, so we'll fund the product by displaying advertisements to those users that do not pay. The advertisers spend money on those ads, but they know the audience doesn't want to pay.. but fortunately, their products might be free too, because they can also be funded by ads (served to the same audience). This intelligent design provides infinite money and in…

They people who don’t pay for ChatGPT still spend money on toothpaste and movies and cars and cereal and a million other things. There’s a reason the advertising industry exists.

Are you sure that's because of online ads? (which I don't see due to ad blockers)

> There’s a reason the advertising industry exists.

I think we'd need to pause online ads to understand their true effect.. I know people buy things, but attributing these choices to the fact that an ad was displayed to the same user some days ago doesn't sound reliable to me.

Re: Tell HN: OpenAI has started putting ads on paid programs

#43

You were on a plan that explicitly includes ads; if you don't want to see them (I don't either), then you can either upgrade to the no-ad tier or, as you did, cancel. Neither choice is wrong, but OpenAI definitely has been open about that lowest-tier paid plan having ads.

Never pay to avoid ads. Signals you've got money to waste, makes your attention even more valuable. You're paying to self-segment into the upper echelons of the market.

Re: Tell HN: OpenAI has started putting ads on paid programs

#44
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ads are inevitable." Not at all. They could even be prohibited by law, as evidenced by prohibitions of some ads being common in most jurisdictions and the Clean City Law of São Paulo. One of the grand old men of modern advertising said that "man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard", and suggested that he would eventually turn to covert militant direct action against it. I suspect that he would have extended…

[flagged]

It's allowed in the dystopia we're living in, but I wouldn't consider it mine.

Re: Tell HN: OpenAI has started putting ads on paid programs

#45

You were on a plan that explicitly includes ads; if you don't want to see them (I don't either), then you can either upgrade to the no-ad tier or, as you did, cancel. Neither choice is wrong, but OpenAI definitely has been open about that lowest-tier paid plan having ads.

Never pay to avoid ads. Signals you've got money to waste, makes your attention even more valuable. You're paying to self-segment into the upper echelons of the market.

So?

Re: Tell HN: OpenAI has started putting ads on paid programs

#46
post #34
post #5

Open AI attended the annual Cannes Ad Festival this year, alongside the usual Google, Meta etc They have 900m users and 50m of them are paying. Ads are inevitable. Surprised they put them on a paid plan user like you, but they are IPO'ing this year and need to show the best numbers possible.

That's some interesting economy there.. 850m users are not paying, so we'll fund the product by displaying advertisements to those users that do not pay. The advertisers spend money on those ads, but they know the audience doesn't want to pay.. but fortunately, their products might be free too, because they can also be funded by ads (served to the same audience). This intelligent design provides infinite money and in…

> That's some interesting economy there.. 850m users are not paying, so we'll fund the product by displaying advertisements to those users that do not pay.

That is... not interesting. That is how the ad supported web worked for the past 20 years.

Re: Tell HN: OpenAI has started putting ads on paid programs

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never pay to avoid ads. Signals you've got money to waste, makes your attention even more valuable. You're paying to self-segment into the upper echelons of the market.

So?

So eventually some shareholder value maximizing CEO will come along and notice all the fat stacks of money he's leaving on the table by not advertising to all of those rich contrarians, which were kind enough to provide you with a database of themselves. A switch will be flipped and suddenly they will all get ads as well.

Always block the ads instead. Unconditionally, and without paying even one cent in extortion money. Your attention is yours. It's not theirs to sell to the highest bidder. You shouldn't have to pay in order to avoid being assaulted by ads. Blocking is legitimate self-defense.

"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."

Re: Tell HN: OpenAI has started putting ads on paid programs

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So?

So eventually some shareholder value maximizing CEO will come along and notice all the fat stacks of money he's leaving on the table by not advertising to all of those rich contrarians, which were kind enough to provide you with a database of themselves. A switch will be flipped and suddenly they will all get ads as well. Always block the ads instead. Unconditionally, and without paying even one cent in extortion mon…

How exactly do you suggest blocking ads that appear inline in your LLM chats
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