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Netflix's paid+ads plan costs 50% less than the standard paid only version with no ads.

I could see ChatGPT search results having affiliate links for shopping stuff even for fully-paid users.

There's a lot of competition in this space, so we'll see what users tolerate. But it's going to be tough getting around the fact this stuff is expensive to run.

Things like this are only 'free' for a reason.

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>this stuff is expensive to run

What's expensive is innovating on current models and building the infrastructure. My understanding is inference is cheap and profitable. Most open source models cost less than a dollar for 1 million tokens which makes me think SotA models likely have a similar pricepoint, but more profit margin.

I can assure you that inference is not profitable if the user is paying nothing.

DAU/MAU stats of free users have already carved out multi-millionaire and billionaire fortunes for employees and executives, all paid out with VC money. Plenty of people are profiting, even if the corporation is deep in the red.

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