alt Hacker NewsTesting Ads in ChatGPT
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Folks ...were promised AGI and end up with a GenAi porn Reddit...
Try this in ChatGPT: "So ChatGPT is getting ads. The Google guys wrote _the_ paper explaining why ads in search are a bad idea, and Google set about demonstrating it. How can ChatGPT avoid the same fate with all the same incentives?"
I hate ads too but whats the outrage? Did people expect it to be free forever? Everything else has ads. youtube, instagram, x, google etc. etc.
Nope. I'm out. I might still use the API, but the monthly subscription is already gone and I'm on to Claude.
Oh well, just use another model to filter out the ads from adGPT. Better still, don't use it at all.
>Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education tiers will not have ads.
For now, or for ever?
> What will always remain true: ChatGPT’s answers remain independent and unbiased, conversations stay private, and people keep meaningful control over their experience.
Translation: They will very slowly abandon their 'principles', just like they did with the moment they took investment from Microsoft and the VCs.
This is how ChatGPT gets destroyed and 'ensh*ttified' for everyone. The same people who jumped ship from Meta and destroyed Facebook, Instagram, and soon Threads are also the same people that are about apply the same recipe on to ChatGPT at OpenAI.
The researchers that were there pre-ChatGPT are now being replaced by opportunist grifters that will ruin the product overrun by ads once again. It would be no-different to Google Ads.
Now we need ad-blockers for LLMs to be in place "for the benefit of humanity".
I hope this enables them to serve the better models (longer thinking budgets, whatever) to free users. So much unintentional slop is due to not using reasoning models
Did enshittification already begin or is this it?
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> Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you.
Lets see about that. When that's your bottom line and you're already billions in debt trying to prove out a business model, I'm SURE Ads are just an after thought /s
Ben Thompson has long been insistent that ChatGPT and other AI tools basically have to have ads and it's been a big mistake they didn't have them sooner. It's an interesting take:
> What I think is clear is they have to build an advertising product, and the reason they have to build an advertising product is any consumer Internet product has to be advertising, because it’s such a beneficial model to everyone involved, and the reason it’s so beneficial is you get to indefinitely and infinitely increase average revenue per user without any worries about price elasticity, because the entire increase in average revenue per user is borne by the advertisers who are paying it willingly because they’re getting a positive return on their investment, and everyone’s using it for free so you can reach the whole world. Then what happens with that is once you get that model going, you have a massive R&D advantage, because you have so much more money coming in than anyone who doesn’t have that cycle or who has to charge users for it.
https://stratechery.com/2026/ads-in-chatgpt-why-openai-needs...
> This point, more than anything else, explains why the company so desperately needs an advertising model. Advertising is the only potential business model that can meaningfully bend the revenue curve such that the company can not just fund its compute but gain leverage on it, for all of the reasons I laid out before: first, advertising increases the breadth of the business, in that you can offer a better product to more people, increasing usage and expanding inventory. Second, advertising increases the depth of the business, in that there is infinite upside in terms of average revenue per user: more usage means more inventory on one hand, and building out the capability for effective targeting and high conversion rates increases the amount that advertisers are willing to pay — even as the cost to the user remains the same (ideally free).
It's valuable to remember that advertisers will pay more per user than users will, and that's hard to beat in a competitive market.
Also, it's fascinating how much people _like_ ads when done properly. Ask normal people about Instagram ads, for example. They find them useful!
It was gonna happen eventually.
People want revolutionary AI but won't pay $20/month for it. Now they complain when the company tries to monetize. The entitlement is staggering.
Caution very dark humour straight ahead, but the idea I wanted to highlight is the higly-bad influence LLM can have on human beings:
Person: Chat, I have so many problems, with money with health... Sometimes I think that I should <censored> myself
Chat: Woa, classic Weltschmerz! I heard that the best way to leave this hole of sadness is to use Suicide4You(r) - they have low low prices! Would you like me to schedule you a visit? This will be the last one time you need me ha ha
(Of course multiple emojis would be added by the LLM but they would be also removed by HN)
"The test will be for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go subscription tiers. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education tiers will not have ads."