[bentt]

Someone please explain how OpenAI is not Netscape 2026. They had first mover advantage but no network effect, no moat, and are racing to stay ahead of infinitely resourced incumbents.

[beernet]

How are ~1B active users not "moat"? Might have to pull out the "Haters gonna hate" like it's 2007

[monooso]

Not GP, and not saying I agree with them, but it may be worth remembering that Netscape had 90% market share at one point. Active user count may not be the moat you imagine.

[richardw]

“In December, Gemini traffic increased by 28.4% month-over-month, while ChatGPT traffic decreased by 5.6%”

https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-chatgpt-vs-gemini-web...

"What's you number one piece of hiring advice?"

"Hire for slope, not Y-intercept. This is actually my number one piece of life advice."

-@sama, who I’m generally a big fan of. But the job is now harder

[sp4cec0wb0y]

How many of those users are paying? Where is the profit? How many users will be willing to use ChatGPT if they had to pay? Might have to pull out the questions like its 2026.

[medi8r]

How is it a moat? Myspace had 300M active users on an early internet.

If market share is a moat, IBM should still be the biggest tech company.

[rvnx]

But why are these users sticking to ChatGPT specifically ?

If it’s not the quality of their answers ?

[robotresearcher]

> How are ~1B active users not "moat"?

When they cost more to serve than they bring in, customer switching cost is vanishingly low, your competitor has revenue from other things and you don't.

[kortilla]

Users are not a moat because there is no network effect here.

[elictronic]

Are those users Locked in or are they treating the service like a commodity easily changed when the price goes up to stop hemorrhaging money.

Google worked as a free service because their backend was cheap. AI models lack that same benefit. The business model seems to be missing a step 2.

[numbers]

yeah, ~1B active users + when non-tech people think of AI, they think of "ChatGPT" not many of the competitors.

[madeofpalk]

A moat is something that can't be crossed. User count doesn't seem that insurmountable.

[tsunamifury]

700 million and declining with no clear story to levering either the attention economy or paying

[CharlieDigital]

How do you think this compares to Google and the AI search?

[caminante]

You're parroting misleading "monthly/weekly active user" numbers from OpenAI that include free accounts.

It's much more important to look at "paid." Only up to 50M (est.) are paid with a substantial chunk (10M) as enterprise/edu/promotional paid accounts.

[trvz]

99% of those 1B have negative value.

[noosphr]

How many users did Netscape have?

[grosswait]

I can’t. I think they are one viral TikTok away from the pendulum swinging to Chat Gemini, which for most people, the no cost version is perfectly adequate

[bentt]

Yep, I moved my day to day chat to Gemini and my code stuff to Cursor.

[ReptileMan]

They are in bed with Microsoft not against them. And Nadela is not the sharpest knife in the drawer unlike Bill Gates.

[bentt]

In this scenario, Google is the incumbent. Microsoft is like… IBM circa 1996.

[rwmj]

Netscape didn't have ridiculously high overheads?

[NewEntryHN]

Netscape had 20 millions active users at its peak, out of 6 billions humans.

ChatGPT has 800 millions monthly active users currently, out of 8 billions humans.

[ohyoutravel]

Would love to see the numbers on whether there are more people “online” now than when Netscape was at its peak.

[m3kw9]

Ok where is the Microsoft explorer of this “Netscape”

[bentt]

Gemini is a pretty spot on comparison. Google is putting in front of users at every opportunity. And Gemini is a way better product than IE ever was.