And they would not be incompetent at targeting. If they were to use the chat history for targeting, they might have the most valuable ad targeting data sets ever built.
All of which made it much less likely that users would bolt in response to each real monetization step. This is very different to the current situation, where we have a shifting landscape with several AI companies, each with its strengths. Things can change, but it takes time for 1-2 leaders to consolidate and for the competition to die off. My 2c.
It would be a hilarious outcome though, “we built machine gods, and the main thing we use them for is to make people click ads.” What a perfect Silicon Valley apotheosis.
Which is still too much trust
I know I don't have as much of a filter as I ought to!
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/pmHZDpak4NeRLLLCw/p/TiDGXt3WrQwt...
you think those people don't believe the magic computer when it talks?
Many people have a lot of trust in anything ChatGPT tells them.
For example, the more product placement opportunities there are, the more products can be placed, so sooner or later that'll become an OKR to the "content side" of the business as well.
Which may be for the best, because people shouldn’t be implicitly trusting the bullshit engine.
A quick search shows that click on ads targeting developers are expensive.
Also there is a ton of users asking to rewrite emails, create business plans, translate, etc.
You could even loudly proclaim that the are ads are not targeted by users which HN would love (but really it would just be old school brand marketing).
Citation needed? I can't sit on a bus without spotting some young person using ChatGPT
You don't need every individual request to be profitable, just the aggregate. If you're doing a Google search for, like, the std::vector API reference you won't see ads. And that's probably true for something like 90% of the searches. Those searches have no commercial value, and serving results is just a cost of doing business.
By serving those unmonetizable queries the search engine is making a bet that when you need to buy a new washing machine, need a personal injury lawyer, or are researching that holiday trip to Istanbul, you'll also do those highly commercial and monetizable searches with the same search engine.
Chatbots should have exactly the same dynamics as search engines.
Techies are also great for network growth and verification for other users, and act as community managers indirectly.
Software guys are doing much, much more than treating LLM's like an improved Stack Overflow. And a lot of them are willing to pay.
Traditional banner ads, inserted inline into the conversation based on some classifier seem a far better idea.