[polishTar]

That's a bit revisionist. Network effects were obvious when Google acquired Youtube. Google Video had the edge technically, but it didn't matter because Youtube had the users/content and Google saw that very clearly in their user growth before they made their offer.

[usef-]

I'm not sure about it having the edge, I thought Google video had a worse interface between them at the time. But that point feels eerily relevant anyway: a lot of normal people I see don't care if Claude/Gemini/etc are better models technically, they're comfortable with ChatGPT already.

A lot of YT's growth at the time was word of mouth and brand among the population, which is currently ChatGPT's position.

[verdverm]

ChatGPT is losing their brand positioning to Google, Anthropic, and Chinese Open Source

Altman knows this and why he called code red. If OpenAI hasn't produce a fully new model in 1.5 years, how much longer can they hang on before people will turn to alternatives that are technically better? How long before they could feasibly put out a new model if they are having issues in pre-training?

[golfer]

Maybe ChatGPT is sticky enough that people won't switch. But since we're talking about something as old as Google Video, we could also talk about AltaVista, which was "good enough" until people discovered a better and more useful alternative.

A lot of "normal people" are learning fast about ChatGPT alternatives now. Gemini in particular is getting a lot of mainstream buzz. Things like this [1] with 14k likes are happening everyday on social. Marc Benioff's love for Gemini broke through into the mainstream also.

[1] https://x.com/kimmonismus/status/1995900344224907500 [2] https://x.com/Benioff/status/1992726929204760661

[AbstractH24]

This is why Anthropic is likely the Netscape of this era. Not OpenAI