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Comment by rco8786 | Hacker News Reader

Let's say Google release a new phone that is significantly cheaper and/or smarter than an Apple one. nobody would stick to apple. There is nearly zero cost to switching and it is a commodity product.

The AI market, much like the phone market, is not a winner take all. There's plenty of room for multiple $100B/$T companies to "win" together.

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> Let's say Google release a new phone that is significantly cheaper and/or smarter than an Apple one. nobody would stick to apple.

This is not at all how the consumer phone market works. Price and “smarts” are not only factor that goes into phone decisions. There are ecosystem factors & messaging networks that add significant friction to switching. The deeper you are into one system the harder it is to switch.

e.g. I am on iPhone and the rest of my family is on Android. The group chat experience is significantly degraded, my videos look like 2003 flip phone videos. Versus my iPhone using friends everything is high resolution.

Cool now apply that same logic to AI

> Let's say Google release a new phone that is significantly cheaper and/or smarter than an Apple one. nobody would stick to apple.

I don't think this is true over the short to mid term. Apple is a status symbol to the point that Android users are bullied over it in schools and dating apps. It would take years ti reverse the perception.

There's a huge "cost" in switching when you are tied to one ecosystem (iOS vs. Android). How will you transfer all your data?

You’re aware that LLMs all have persistent memory now and personalize themselves to you over time right? You can’t transfer that from OAI to Anthropic.

Pixel phones exist (and have for some time!) yet people still buy iPhones

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