The answer is friction. What % of this billion of users will bother to export their chat history (which is already a lot) and import another another llm. That number is too small to matter.
How many of those care about their own particular history in the first place and what % of those at least actively manage it outside of standard chat interface or even hop providers? I think that % would surprise you.
All chat apps look exactly the same and have exactly the same features. The friction is basically non-existent compared to email services, social media, web browsers, &c.
I think it matters to more than you might think. A significant portion of the non-technical ChatGPT userbase get really attached to the model flavor.
The GPT-4o controversy is a good example. People got attached to 4o's emotional and enthusiastic response style. When GPT-5--which was much more terse and practical--rolled out, people got really upset because they were treating ChatGPT as a confident and friend, and were upset when it's personality changed.
In my experience, Gemini and Claude are much more helpful and terse than ChatGPT with less conversational padding. I can imagine that the people who value that conversational padding would have a similar reaction to Gemini or Claude as they did to GPT-5.
Yet, somehow I've been paying $20/month to ChatGPT for years now and I don't use Claude or Gemini even when they're free or have slightly better models.
adam_patarino|3 months ago
It’s not like Facebook where all my friends stay behind
aranelsurion|3 months ago
That hasn't been true for a while though. Open a new chat tab in ChatGPT and ask it "What do you know about me" to see it in action.
friendzis|3 months ago
How many of those care about their own particular history in the first place and what % of those at least actively manage it outside of standard chat interface or even hop providers? I think that % would surprise you.
swexbe|3 months ago
ethmarks|3 months ago
The GPT-4o controversy is a good example. People got attached to 4o's emotional and enthusiastic response style. When GPT-5--which was much more terse and practical--rolled out, people got really upset because they were treating ChatGPT as a confident and friend, and were upset when it's personality changed.
In my experience, Gemini and Claude are much more helpful and terse than ChatGPT with less conversational padding. I can imagine that the people who value that conversational padding would have a similar reaction to Gemini or Claude as they did to GPT-5.
aurareturn|3 months ago
chroma205|3 months ago
Yet non-technical users switched from Edge/Safari to Google Chrome.
aurareturn|3 months ago
Even if there is, browsers made it easy to import/export bookmarks and history.
You don't see Instagram willingly giving up all their data on users to Tiktok right?