I think you just misinterpreted the reasoning here. Both are true.
Google and Meta are good examples of ads working because the services were already entrenched before ads were slowly rolled out and then increased. That’s a monetization strategy. When you roll out ads your platform needs to have a critical mass that can weather an exodus of people who hate the change.
The red flag here is the timing. Typically, ads signal a degradation of the overall UX—they’re a signal that the product is so entrenched in the market that leadership believes you’ll stay and get over it and/or don’t care if you go because the math works even if you do. As such, your product needs to have some market dominance and proven ability to retain users.
That’s not ChatGPT, yet. There are plenty of free-tier competitive products available that are as-good if not arguably better. So if the UX tanks, people will just go elsewhere. This is AIs bubble. The massive costs don’t appear to be justifying the use cases most of the time—they’re ad-on convenience services, not total market disrupter (yet). This is why many think AIs future will be controlled by a few massive players rather than a competitive space. Most AI startups are likely doomed in the long term as investor support cools.
Microsoft, Alphabet, etc, all have entrenched service models that are highly profitable—they can absorb buildout while tacking on AI to their ecosystems without degrading the UX though ads. ChatGPT making this move now is an indicator they need to show a path to profit—and this move, this soon, when competitors don’t have to, shows a weak hand.
So the argument here is a nuanced but huge difference: ads as a monetization strategy vs ads as a revenue Hail Mary.
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