Hacker News Reader

Amazon had a product on day 1... particularly one that was unique and made a lot of sense for the moment it was introduced.

View on HN

OpenAI doesn’t have a product? Have we existed in the same reality for the last 3 years? Something something fastest grown user base in the history of tech

Something Something every one of those users (even the paying ones!) loses OpenAI money

No, they don't, the value of AI isn't the AI itself, it's purely the output.

If someone else can achieve the same output as OpenAI at a similar price, they are completely toast. There is absolutely nothing tying you to ChatGPT because ChatGPT doesn't matter, only what it produces.

Amazon was in a (similar) situation, but not quite, because they offered a unique experience. But I strongly believe that if Sears just kept their catalogue for another decade, Amazon would not exist.

Selling books online was certainly profitable, but I'm not sure about unique. Amazon's big success is that they had no particular ties to any existing publisher so they didn't have the corporate headwinds of "this will kill our brick and mortar stores and their distribution systems!".

No, it was unique. Being able to browse such an extensive collection of books and order them from your computer was mind-blowing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com