[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.

[mlinsey]

Adoption of web browsers was also much lower when Netscape was dominant. 90% marketshare is less meaningful if you're only 1% of the way to the potential market size. Peeling away users who talk to ChatGPT every day is very possible, but harder than getting someone whose never used an LLM before (but does use your OS, browser, phone...) to try yours first.

I think the even better analogy than browsers is search engines. There aren't any network effects or platform lock-in, but there is potential for a data flywheel, building a brand, and just getting users in the habit of using you. The results won't necessarily turn out the same - I think OpenAI's edge on results quality is a lot less than early Google over its competitors - but the shape of the competition is similar.

[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

[medi8r]

Or maybe hire for 2nd (acceleration) or even 3rd (jerk) derivative.

[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.

[ac29]

> How many of those users are paying?

About 5% according to a news article a few months ago.

Will the other 95% stick around once ads or payments are required?

[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.

[jimbob45]

MySpace would have won had they not been outcompeted by virtue of their momentum though.

[rvnx]

But why are these users sticking to ChatGPT specifically ?

If it’s not the quality of their answers ?

[Night_Thastus]

They'll stay as long as it's cheap. The moment any attempt is made to raise the price, the number will crater.

[kingkongjaffa]

for 99% of normies ChatGPT is the only LLM provider they know or have heard of.

[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.

[beernet]

> 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.

What? "Other things"? This is really vague. Who says competitors have lower CAC? It's rather likely competitors pay more for a new customer, due to, very simply, brand.

[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.

[leptons]

"Anthropic" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, and I think a lot of people would avoid it simply because it doesn't have a catchy name like OpenAI or ChatGPT. It's also far more fun to say "I did a Google search" than "I did a Duck Duck Go search", and one still dominates over the other no matter the privacy concerns or how easy it is to switch. People can be simple like that.

[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?