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Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

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Re: Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

#41

Post by rileymat2 »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #32
atorodius wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google realized this a long time ago; there is no ad-free paid version of Google Search. well there is also no 200$/month Google Search subscription

That is exactly my point: there easily could be, but there isn't. Based on how many commenters on HN and similar sites bemoan how Google Search quality has precipitously declined and yearn for the Google of ~10 years ago, I think there'd be nontrivial demand for a $200/month ad-free Google with no-nonsense comprehensive results. Such a product does not exist because it would ultimately be a net loss for Google.

The integration of ads is a problem but content creators and marketers have had an adversarial relationship with SEO with Google for a long time, the old algorithm probably would not work as well as what they are providing.

Re: Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

#42

Post by KellyCriterion »

imiric wrote: post #22

There's no question that "AI" is the next advertising frontier. I've been saying this for years[1][2][3]. It is going to be the most lucrative form of it yet, and no "AI" company will be able to resist it. Given the exorbitant amount of resources required for this technology, advertising will probably be the only viable business model that can sustain it at scale. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35706981 [2…

"for years"? the oldest link in your list is from lat 2023, so.... ;-) ;-)

Re: Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

#43

Post by avaer »

What's the difference between AI ads and computer-assisted bribery?

We can wrangle the legalese (as AI companies certainly will) but is there any ethical, moral, or practical difference?

Re: Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

#44

Post by mancerayder »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #6

I think ads will inevitably roll out across all tiers, even the expensive paid ones. Ad revenue isn't uniformly distributed across users, but rather heavily skewed towards the wealthiest users, exactly the users most able to purchase an ad-free experience. The users paying $20 or $200/month for premium tiers of ChatGPT are precisely the ones you don't want to exclude from generating ad revenue. Google realized this a…

This kills me, and you're right - there's no escaping the ads even with a sub. Take online journalism as an example.

We're already being double-billed. Expensive subscription news like WSJ, Bloomberg and it's been a while but even FT require ad blockers even if you're subscribed.. If you're not subscribed you don't even see the ads because you can't see the full article.

It's wild that we've normalized this. There's no longer any argument in favor of an ad model when you're paying 20-30 dollars a month already - in this case, one wonders how journalism survives if they need that AND the ad revenue to pay the bills! It feels more like greed than "support."

Re: Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

#45

Post by bena »

KellyCriterion wrote: post #31
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #10

> Look on the bright side, if they're turning to ads it likely means AGI is not on the horizon. Your job is safe! I like this quote from TFA :)

I stumbled upon this one as well, but I do not understand it really: Why is my job safe if Ads prove there is no AGI? Because even if there would be AGI, they could (and would?) serve ads anyway?

Because it shows that it’s just yet another ad delivery vehicle.

Once you go ads, that’s pretty much it, you start focusing on how to deliver ads rather than what you claim your core competency is.

Re: Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

#46

Post by MontyCarloHall »

throwaway150 wrote: post #30
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi is a niche product at best, with revenue literally orders of magnitude lower than Google's.

Yes, but it is still a valid counterexample to: > I think ads will inevitably roll out across all tiers

Kagi is too small and niche to have a proprietary dataset across its users large enough to make targeted advertising generate more revenue than subscriptions.

OpenAI/Google/etc. operate at a much larger scale, large enough for those proprietary user datasets to be worth far more in ad revenue than any reasonable subscription fee could net.

Re: Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

#47

Post by nathan_compton »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #6

I think ads will inevitably roll out across all tiers, even the expensive paid ones. Ad revenue isn't uniformly distributed across users, but rather heavily skewed towards the wealthiest users, exactly the users most able to purchase an ad-free experience. The users paying $20 or $200/month for premium tiers of ChatGPT are precisely the ones you don't want to exclude from generating ad revenue. Google realized this a…

This is why we need to ban targeted advertising. In fact, I think ads should be 100% opt-in. The user has to accept them or it is illegal to show them to the user.

Re: Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

#48

Post by Quarrelsome »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #6

I think ads will inevitably roll out across all tiers, even the expensive paid ones. Ad revenue isn't uniformly distributed across users, but rather heavily skewed towards the wealthiest users, exactly the users most able to purchase an ad-free experience. The users paying $20 or $200/month for premium tiers of ChatGPT are precisely the ones you don't want to exclude from generating ad revenue. Google realized this a…

> The users paying $20 or $200/month for premium tiers of ChatGPT are precisely the ones you don't want to exclude from generating ad revenue.

but they're already paying you. While I appreciate the greed can be there, surely they'd be shooting themselves in the foot. There's many people who would pay who find advertising toxic and they have such huge volumes at free level that they'd be able to make a lot off a low impression cost.

Re: Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

#49

Post by nothrabannosir »

andy99 wrote: post #28
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think ads will take the form of insidious but convincing product placement invisibly woven into model outputs. This will both prevent any blocking of ad content, and also be much more effective: after all, we allude to companies and products all the time in regular human conversation, and the best form of marketing is organic word-of-mouth.

I just saw a sibling post about Kagi, maybe this is how the industry will end up, with a main provider like OpenAI and niche wrappers on top (I know Kagi is not just a google wrapper but at least they used to return google search results that they paid for).

I thought you were going to say “that comment recommending Kagi is exactly what those ads would look like: native responses making product recommendations as if they’re natural responses in the conversation”

Re: Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy

#50

Post by nsmdkdfk »

throwaway150 wrote: post #36
KellyCriterion wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stumbled upon this one as well, but I do not understand it really: Why is my job safe if Ads prove there is no AGI? Because even if there would be AGI, they could (and would?) serve ads anyway?

Yes, I don't understand it either. I think the opposite is true. If AGI happens and it becomes immensely successful, it would be the best medium to deliver ads and at the same time our jobs wouldn't be safe. Perhaps the people who like that quote can elaborate why that quote makes sense and why they like it?

[dead]
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