10 ms·

Ads in ChatGPT

43 points by cbility 5mo ago

dtagames 5mo ago
The use of wishy washy language is fab. They don't show ads; ads "will be available." (passive voice) Also, ads don't affect chat content but of course chat content affects ads, which is the whole point.
- gruez 5mo ago
  >Also, ads don't affect chat content but of course chat content affects ads, which is the whole point. Given that Anthropic's superbowl ad implied otherwise, I think it's a fair distinction to call about. Not to mention basically every advertising network uses context in their ads. Given the choice between ads and no ads, I'd obviously want no ads, but just like google, you need to pay the bills somehow, and not everyone can afford a $20/month claude subscription.
  - baggachipz 5mo ago
    I'm curious when OpenAI will be able to start paying the bills. Because I can't think of any amount of ads which will dig them out of their hole.
    - pixel_popping 5mo ago
      They don't really need to tho, they can actually keep raising money for a decade.
      - baggachipz 5mo ago
        Then why run ads?
        pixel_popping 5mo ago
        More money as there is never enough.
- satvikpendem 5mo ago
  In Google Gemini, ads do affect chat as they're native affiliate links right inside the chat, it's somewhat annoying.
  - kshacker 5mo ago
    Affecting chat would mean the chat answer would be different because of ads. Btw this should be easily testable by comparing free and paid accounts
    - satvikpendem 5mo ago
      In Gemini it is different. Looks like they have a system prompt to push Google Shopping links regardless of whether the user asks for it or not, I've noticed.
- 52-6F-62 5mo ago
  > chat content affects ads, which is the whole point. What happens when I am constantly violating usage terms by calling ChatGPT mean names for ignoring my explicit instructions and trying to turn everything into a trite creative writing project. "Not programming. Not efficiencies. Terrible, terrible poetry."
shaky-carrousel 5mo ago
> We’re beginning to test ads in ChatGPT in the US. Ads may appear for users on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu accounts will not have ads. Yet.
- cute_boi 5mo ago
  This is always how it starts, just like Netflix. Eventually, we will have to pay a lot of money and still have ads too.
  - gruez 5mo ago
    >just like Netflix. Eventually, we will have to pay a lot of money and still have ads too. This doesn't match reality. The "standard with ads" plan is $8.99 today, a dollar more than the ad-free "streaming only" plan launched in 2011. However factoring in inflation, the ad-free plan from 2011 would cost $11.74 today, which means the ad supported plan is still cheaper, even ignoring the price hikes.
    - ceejayoz 5mo ago
      At the same time, they keep hiking the other tiers, and cracking down on password sharing or kids off at college. These need to be factored in as well.
      - gruez 5mo ago
        >they keep hiking the other tiers That's why I compared against the 2011 prices. The ad-supported plan is still cheaper. >cracking down on password sharing or kids off at college Doesn't password sharing affect ad supported plans too? It basically has no effect on the comparison because it makes both the ad supported and non ad supported plans cheaper.
        ceejayoz 5mo ago
        The crackdown on "your kid's in a dorm, you can't share the account" is intended to get that kid to buy a second account. The ad tier is cheap so they can say "well switch to the cheap plan" when someone complains about the hikes.
raincole 5mo ago
> Ads may appear for users on the Free... Ok > ...and Go plans Wtf lmao. Paying to watch ads is so normalized. Pathetic (the humanity as whole, not just OpenAI.)
- 52-6F-62 5mo ago
  > the humanity as whole I think this 'pay for ads you are just lucky to be here' thing is a distinctly American invention...
  - gruez 5mo ago
    Source? It's not at all obvious given that it dates back to at least the days of newspapers.
    - wizzwizz4 5mo ago
      The classified ads section in a newspaper is valuable, and you can discard it. (If you meant ads stuffed around articles: yes, that annoys me, but I'm also not familiar enough with the papers that do that to name one.)
    - 52-6F-62 5mo ago
      The newspaper ads looking to capture my escaped ancestors who stole some shoes and ran away from their indenturement for Canada. https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2013/05/advertising-in-america/ https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2013/05/advertising-in-... If you are looking for one canonical, authoritative source to declare something absolutely for you, you will never find it. No such thing exists for any matter. That is a myth of the internet and people raised on it.
      - gruez 5mo ago
        >If you are looking for one canonical, authoritative source to declare something absolutely for you, you will never find it Even if we treat your source as canonical and authoritative, , it doesn't answer the question I was asking. It only answers a slightly different question of "what was the first instance of a paid advertisement in an American newspaper?", which obviously is going to be American. >But did you know that the first time a paid advertisement appeared in an American newspaper it happened here in Boston?
fg137 5mo ago
Does this mean US users won't see ads when accessing ChatGPT over VPN?
- pixel_popping 5mo ago
  They'll probably start the wave of bans soon enough for "geobypassing users"
baddash 5mo ago
It's only a matter of time before ChatGPT starts recommending penis enhancement pills or tells me hot MILFs are in my area.
- nojs 5mo ago
  > hot MILFs in my area https://youtu.be/FBSam25u8O4 https://youtu.be/FBSam25u8O4
micromacrofoot 5mo ago
Funny to watch them so quickly go from the self-aggrandized "we're going to make the world a better place" to being defensive with "pwease click our ads and don't hold us responsible for the harm we cause" These companies spend billions and billions of dollars to develop new technology and in the end it's all the same: addiction and data harvesting for ads.
mauvehaus 5mo ago
It feels like this is opening the door to blurring the line between outright advertising and organic recommendations for products. Like if I ask ChatGPT whether to use fiberglass or rock wool insulation, today I get an ad at the end of my answer, and in the future I’ll get "Dow Corning fiberglass insulation (affiliate link) is the recommended product for this application." This feels like it’s trading on the goodwill of places like Reddit and the hopefully mostly genuine discussions of folk’s experiences that people trust to get a straight answer to their questions. Monetizing that goodwill by selling recommendations in a format that mimics a previously mostly trustworthy source seems likely to be the long-term play. Yeah, I know. Not today. Eventually? Probably, over many incremental changes. Turns out Randall Monroe missed this "opportunity" in otherwise predicting the future: https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ (Edited to get rid of "smart" quotes)
- wizzwizz4 5mo ago
  He'd already written about it: https://xkcd.com/632/ https://xkcd.com/632/
- gruez 5mo ago
  >It feels like this is opening the door to blurring the line between outright advertising and organic recommendations for products. > ... >Yeah, I know. Not today. Eventually? Probably, over many incremental changes. Given that people have been making this argument since the days of search ads, has this actually come to pass? More than 2 decades after google, the max extent is sponsored results that look like organic results unless you're looking carefully.
neves 5mo ago
As promised, they are opening the Gates of Hell. I seriously recommend the brilliant Zeynep Tufekci lecture about this https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dystopia_just_to_make_people_click_on_ads https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dy... Society must have power over this and we all must not fall to the easy talk of CEOs.
adamwong246 5mo ago
I use DeepSeek because I trust the Chinese government more than OpenAI
- queenkjuul 5mo ago
  As you should
nojs 5mo ago
> Ads do not appear in accounts where someone tells us—or we predict—they are under 18. Time to make a deal with the kids - i’ll verify you for instagram if you verify me for ChatGPT
lgl 5mo ago
Google Before: “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased toward the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.” After: ~75–80%+ of revenue comes from ads Facebook Before: “Facebook is not about making money… it’s about building something cool.”, “We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.” After: ~97%+ of revenue comes from advertising Twitter Before: “We want to figure out a way to monetize that doesn’t interfere with the user experience.” After: ~68% of X’s total revenue comes from advertising (~85–90%+ of revenue pre-Musk) OpenAI Before: "Something something AGI" After: "But first, Ads!"
- exolymph 5mo ago
  Even Amazon has substantial ad revenue now, and it does in fact undercut customer obsession by polluting search results.

43 points by cbility 5mo ago

The use of wishy washy language is fab. They don't show ads; ads "will be available." (passive voice) Also, ads don't affect chat content but of course chat content affects ads, which is the whole point.

gruez 5mo ago
>Also, ads don't affect chat content but of course chat content affects ads, which is the whole point. Given that Anthropic's superbowl ad implied otherwise, I think it's a fair distinction to call about. Not to mention basically every advertising network uses context in their ads. Given the choice between ads and no ads, I'd obviously want no ads, but just like google, you need to pay the bills somehow, and not everyone can afford a $20/month claude subscription.
- baggachipz 5mo ago
  I'm curious when OpenAI will be able to start paying the bills. Because I can't think of any amount of ads which will dig them out of their hole.
  - pixel_popping 5mo ago
    They don't really need to tho, they can actually keep raising money for a decade.
    - baggachipz 5mo ago
      Then why run ads?
      - pixel_popping 5mo ago
        More money as there is never enough.
satvikpendem 5mo ago
In Google Gemini, ads do affect chat as they're native affiliate links right inside the chat, it's somewhat annoying.
- kshacker 5mo ago
  Affecting chat would mean the chat answer would be different because of ads. Btw this should be easily testable by comparing free and paid accounts
  - satvikpendem 5mo ago
    In Gemini it is different. Looks like they have a system prompt to push Google Shopping links regardless of whether the user asks for it or not, I've noticed.
52-6F-62 5mo ago
> chat content affects ads, which is the whole point. What happens when I am constantly violating usage terms by calling ChatGPT mean names for ignoring my explicit instructions and trying to turn everything into a trite creative writing project. "Not programming. Not efficiencies. Terrible, terrible poetry."

shaky-carrousel 5mo ago

> We’re beginning to test ads in ChatGPT in the US. Ads may appear for users on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu accounts will not have ads. Yet.

cute_boi 5mo ago
This is always how it starts, just like Netflix. Eventually, we will have to pay a lot of money and still have ads too.
- gruez 5mo ago
  >just like Netflix. Eventually, we will have to pay a lot of money and still have ads too. This doesn't match reality. The "standard with ads" plan is $8.99 today, a dollar more than the ad-free "streaming only" plan launched in 2011. However factoring in inflation, the ad-free plan from 2011 would cost $11.74 today, which means the ad supported plan is still cheaper, even ignoring the price hikes.
  - ceejayoz 5mo ago
    At the same time, they keep hiking the other tiers, and cracking down on password sharing or kids off at college. These need to be factored in as well.
    - gruez 5mo ago
      >they keep hiking the other tiers That's why I compared against the 2011 prices. The ad-supported plan is still cheaper. >cracking down on password sharing or kids off at college Doesn't password sharing affect ad supported plans too? It basically has no effect on the comparison because it makes both the ad supported and non ad supported plans cheaper.
      - ceejayoz 5mo ago
        The crackdown on "your kid's in a dorm, you can't share the account" is intended to get that kid to buy a second account. The ad tier is cheap so they can say "well switch to the cheap plan" when someone complains about the hikes.

raincole 5mo ago

> Ads may appear for users on the Free... Ok > ...and Go plans Wtf lmao. Paying to watch ads is so normalized. Pathetic (the humanity as whole, not just OpenAI.)

52-6F-62 5mo ago
> the humanity as whole I think this 'pay for ads you are just lucky to be here' thing is a distinctly American invention...
- gruez 5mo ago
  Source? It's not at all obvious given that it dates back to at least the days of newspapers.
  - wizzwizz4 5mo ago
    The classified ads section in a newspaper is valuable, and you can discard it. (If you meant ads stuffed around articles: yes, that annoys me, but I'm also not familiar enough with the papers that do that to name one.)
  - 52-6F-62 5mo ago
    The newspaper ads looking to capture my escaped ancestors who stole some shoes and ran away from their indenturement for Canada. https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2013/05/advertising-in-america/ https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2013/05/advertising-in-... If you are looking for one canonical, authoritative source to declare something absolutely for you, you will never find it. No such thing exists for any matter. That is a myth of the internet and people raised on it.
    - gruez 5mo ago
      >If you are looking for one canonical, authoritative source to declare something absolutely for you, you will never find it Even if we treat your source as canonical and authoritative, , it doesn't answer the question I was asking. It only answers a slightly different question of "what was the first instance of a paid advertisement in an American newspaper?", which obviously is going to be American. >But did you know that the first time a paid advertisement appeared in an American newspaper it happened here in Boston?

fg137 5mo ago

Does this mean US users won't see ads when accessing ChatGPT over VPN?

pixel_popping 5mo ago
They'll probably start the wave of bans soon enough for "geobypassing users"

baddash 5mo ago

It's only a matter of time before ChatGPT starts recommending penis enhancement pills or tells me hot MILFs are in my area.

nojs 5mo ago
> hot MILFs in my area https://youtu.be/FBSam25u8O4 https://youtu.be/FBSam25u8O4

micromacrofoot 5mo ago

Funny to watch them so quickly go from the self-aggrandized "we're going to make the world a better place" to being defensive with "pwease click our ads and don't hold us responsible for the harm we cause" These companies spend billions and billions of dollars to develop new technology and in the end it's all the same: addiction and data harvesting for ads.

mauvehaus 5mo ago

It feels like this is opening the door to blurring the line between outright advertising and organic recommendations for products. Like if I ask ChatGPT whether to use fiberglass or rock wool insulation, today I get an ad at the end of my answer, and in the future I’ll get "Dow Corning fiberglass insulation (affiliate link) is the recommended product for this application." This feels like it’s trading on the goodwill of places like Reddit and the hopefully mostly genuine discussions of folk’s experiences that people trust to get a straight answer to their questions. Monetizing that goodwill by selling recommendations in a format that mimics a previously mostly trustworthy source seems likely to be the long-term play. Yeah, I know. Not today. Eventually? Probably, over many incremental changes. Turns out Randall Monroe missed this "opportunity" in otherwise predicting the future: https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ (Edited to get rid of "smart" quotes)

wizzwizz4 5mo ago
He'd already written about it: https://xkcd.com/632/ https://xkcd.com/632/
gruez 5mo ago
>It feels like this is opening the door to blurring the line between outright advertising and organic recommendations for products. > ... >Yeah, I know. Not today. Eventually? Probably, over many incremental changes. Given that people have been making this argument since the days of search ads, has this actually come to pass? More than 2 decades after google, the max extent is sponsored results that look like organic results unless you're looking carefully.

neves 5mo ago

As promised, they are opening the Gates of Hell. I seriously recommend the brilliant Zeynep Tufekci lecture about this https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dystopia_just_to_make_people_click_on_ads https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dy... Society must have power over this and we all must not fall to the easy talk of CEOs.

adamwong246 5mo ago

I use DeepSeek because I trust the Chinese government more than OpenAI

queenkjuul 5mo ago
As you should

nojs 5mo ago

> Ads do not appear in accounts where someone tells us—or we predict—they are under 18. Time to make a deal with the kids - i’ll verify you for instagram if you verify me for ChatGPT

lgl 5mo ago

Google Before: “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased toward the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.” After: ~75–80%+ of revenue comes from ads Facebook Before: “Facebook is not about making money… it’s about building something cool.”, “We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.” After: ~97%+ of revenue comes from advertising Twitter Before: “We want to figure out a way to monetize that doesn’t interfere with the user experience.” After: ~68% of X’s total revenue comes from advertising (~85–90%+ of revenue pre-Musk) OpenAI Before: "Something something AGI" After: "But first, Ads!"

exolymph 5mo ago
Even Amazon has substantial ad revenue now, and it does in fact undercut customer obsession by polluting search results.