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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

If ChatGPT shows ads, I'll switch to Claude or Gemini or DeepSeek.

I expect all hosted model providers will serve ads (regular, marked advertisements, no need for them to pretend not to, people don't care) once the first provider takes the lid off on the whole thing and it proves to be making money. There's no point in differentiating as the one hosted model with no ads because it only attracts a few people, the same way existing Google search and YouTube alternatives that respect the user are niche. Only offline, self hosted models will be ad free (in my estimation).

Assuming you know it's an ad. Ads in answers will generate a ton of revenue and you'll never know if that Hilton really is the best hotel or if they just paid the most.

This isn't a realistic concern unless FTC rules changed substantially from where they are today (see my other comment on this post for links). Sponsored link disclosures would be in place.

Everything else aside, it's simply not worth it for them to try to skirt these rules because the majority of their users (or Google's) simply don't care if something is paid placement or not, provided it meets their needs.

The US federal government is now a mob-style organization. The laws, rules, and regulations that are written down are only applicable as far as Trump and those around him want them to be. Loyalty to the boss is the only inviolable rule.

In other words, if they want to put ads into chat, they just need to be perceived as well aligned to Trump to avoid any actual punishment.

That's only true if you can demonstrate a substantial percentage of people would be unaware of it. The reason influencers have to disclose is some but not all take endorsement money. It would be pretty easy for OpenAI to say it was common knowledge or to bury disclosures in the fine print of the services and not every time it happened

The OpenAI pitch for “publishing partnerships” (basically buying bias and placement) leaked last year.

They're all already trained on ads, and it would be silly to think advertisers aren't going to optimize for this.

Do you think it would show ads, or just prioritize content based on who has paid for ad placement?

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