alt Hacker News> Absolutely no business with any real money is going to be swayed
And what about everyone starting something? Or prototyping? And what if you don't have a choice: pay more or follow our sponsored guidelines?
This is a dangerous road without proper defences both in terms of legislation and policy (and I mean world-wide, world corps = world laws, not having to go to court in every country lol).
Also, end users need to be educated about all this because what is to stop John or Jane from uploading their receipts to GPT to make their taxes and ... oops "did you know you can switch insurance to XYZ" or ... AI browser proactively hiding content competing with their partners ... you looking for a healthcare package? The only one available is from our sponsor. Take it or leave it.
The tax situation already happens now with Intuit owning both Turbo Tax and CreditKarma to get you to sign up for credit cards.
If I were prototyping something and found I could do it cheaper somewhere else, I’m not sure I would be upset. I hate ads just for the bad user experience.
As long as it is clearly an ad and they say they have affiliations. It’s no different than what Google and Amazon does now.
But ironically enough, I was almost about to pay for Overcast years ago even though the author openly admitted that you didn’t get much of anything for it except for supporting him back then.
He then added a non slimy self hosted system to buy ads for other podcasts based on the category of podcast you were listening to at that very second (no tracking). I thought that was a great service.
I think I would actually lean into a tight integration between ChatGPT and something like booking.com[1], AirBNB, GetYourGuide, etc when looking for travel ideas.
[1] Well I personally wouldn’t because I am not as cost conscience as the average traveler and I value the loyalty programs and status of certain hotel chains and Delta airlines. But most travelers don’t and shouldn’t care.
But if they let me put in my loyalty numbers and book directly with Hyatt, Hilton and Delta, hell I might pay more for ChatGPT.