[HN Gopher] Perplexity Got Ads
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Perplexity Got Ads
Author : amrrs
Score : 48 points
Date : 2025-01-03 21:54 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| mikae1 wrote:
| Surprise! Companies eventually need to make some money.
| jsheard wrote:
| True! They should consider using Intuit(tm) TurboTax(tm) when
| the IRS comes for their cut!
|
| _(disclaimer: responses may include paid product placement)_
| behnamoh wrote:
| perplexity already has a subscription plan...
| jsheard wrote:
| So does OpenAI, but they're still burning billions of dollars
| every year. Ads are another way to stem the bleeding.
| BadHumans wrote:
| No one pays for things but very few people are going to quit
| because of ads. Having an ad-supported tier almost always
| makes the most sense.
| amelius wrote:
| But why do they need to choose the shittiest monetization
| model?
| jsheard wrote:
| If you have a better idea for making AI chatbots profitable
| then I'm sure all the AI chatbot companies that are losing
| staggering amounts of money would love to hear it.
| talldayo wrote:
| I like how AI generated ads tacitly confirm that advertisement
| was never about exposure and introducing people to new things.
| No, it's about automating deception on a grand scale and awarding
| the people that can most effectively control an audience.
|
| Why _is_ TurboTax the best way to file my taxes, anyways?
| plagiarist wrote:
| Because of regulatory capture. In essence, TurboTax has been
| able to purchase legislators who then ensure that tax law is
| difficult for regular people. This creates a larger market for
| TurboTax. That's similar (albeit less awful, I admit) to how
| for-profit prisons are able to purchase legislators to ensure
| that they are able to fill their cells.
|
| There are some countries that have managed to avoid having tax
| prep software companies purchasing their legislators. In those
| countries, the best way to file taxes is basically observing
| the overview and clicking "yes that's accurate" on a
| government-provided website.
| mminer237 wrote:
| Even with that, TurboTax probably isn't the best. H&R Block
| or TaxSlayer or FreeTaxUSA can help you with your taxes just
| the same for less or free.
| amrrs wrote:
| fwiw - Aravind Srinivas (Perplexity cofounder) spoke about Ads -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWPmu_rKxJo
| sabareesh wrote:
| He wanted to expose ads to AI, which felt weird for some
| reason.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Just a quick note to reiterate how much I love Kagi. I pay for
| Ultimate for both my wife and me (for search, we have a family
| plan and the kids just lean on FastGPT, which is included).
| Ultimate includes Kagi's Assistant, which in my view they've
| quietly developed as a Perplexity killer. Integrates Kagi's clean
| search results with citations. All with no ads, no bullshit. It's
| the whole corporate mission. It's awesome. I hope enough people
| are willing to pay to make Kagi successful.
| bbertelsen wrote:
| The Assistant product is incredible. It's been my daily driver
| (+Cursor), since September. I don't even bother with normal
| search results unless I really can't find something (like a
| specific GitHub issue that hasn't been cached yet)
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| Is the assistant similar to perplexity? Or something
| different?
| int_19h wrote:
| Do these apply to their paid "pro" option?
| plagiarist wrote:
| A large reason LLMs are useful for search and answering questions
| is because they omit the ads and (LLM-generated!) garbage
| listicles to give the searcher a straight answer. Ads are, by
| definition, worse for the searcher. If they were quality and
| strongly related to the query they would be organic results.
|
| IMO it was always inevitable that companies will put the ads back
| in, removing this benefit. Perhaps the paid AI offerings will be
| able to continue focusing on quality results for the searchers.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > A large reason LLMs are useful ... is because they omit ...
| (LLM-generated!) garbage listicles
|
| What a sentence!
| plagiarist wrote:
| Right? It really is a racket that the same tool which
| generates massive amounts of noise can also filter down to
| some of the signal. Like if I sold tires and also threw
| fistfuls of nails in parking lots.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I noticed this when I was served an ad for the newish Venom
| movie. Add in TurboTax, and it seems like they really have no
| discretion about who they are willing to advertise for. That is
| worrisome.
| duckkg5 wrote:
| No surprise here, but what a bummer that this is "The Way(tm)"
|
| Just let me pay you $3-5/ month to never see an ad again. It's
| worth it to me since the service is actually decent.
| gaze wrote:
| Yeah but what if they took the 3-5 dollars and also showed you
| ads?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| That'll never work.
|
| _Looks at cable TV_
|
| _Looks at streaming services_
| consp wrote:
| I have neither and my life is better for it. I might pay
| for a decent streaming service but we've past the point
| where that is the case. I will never pay again for classic
| TV, it's a scam since you pay for more ads than actual
| content.
| imposterr wrote:
| You mean Perplexity Pro? That thing they tried and found that
| no one was willing to pay for cuz users say they want paid
| options but then jump boat to the free things always?
|
| https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/faq/what-is-perplexity-pro
| yedava wrote:
| AI products will be speed running the last few decades of tech -
| make a compelling product, then add ads based on the prompt, then
| store prompts from each user and build psychological profiles,
| and finally manipulate AI output to maximize user susceptibility
| to part with their hard earned money. Bonus points if they can
| get the user addicted to their product.
| sciencesama wrote:
| And then there will be an ai ad blocker
| npollock wrote:
| how long before the advertisers pressure model providers to
| "fine-tune" mentions of their competitors?
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Negative three months?
| behnamoh wrote:
| Makes me wonder if the lowering of prices in this industry is
| temporary. Currently, the API costs are at an all-time low, but
| how much of it is subsidized by investor money? Are we going to
| see increasing prices as the hype goes away and post-nut clarity
| kicks in the industry?
| fullshark wrote:
| Definitely, these companies are trying to buy market share,
| establish lock in, and then figure out the long term cash flows
| after competition folds.
| rvz wrote:
| > Makes me wonder if the lowering of prices in this industry is
| temporary.
|
| Yes.
|
| For example, Microsoft is keeping prices of Copilot temporarily
| free for as long as possible to destroy competitors who can't
| compete with the best tool available for free.
|
| This is a known attractive tactic to the point where it is the
| new definition of 'Extinguish' in Microsoft's EEE strategy:
| Embrace (Open Source, Github), Extend (OpenAI, GitHub),
| Extinguish (For free).
|
| > Are we going to see increasing prices as the hype goes away
| and post-nut clarity kicks in the industry?
|
| Until there are enough AI startups shutting down and a few of
| them have gone public on the stock market. The prices will
| start to rise by $0.50 - $1.50 per million tokens very slowly.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| well it's a company and no one is forced to use their product if
| they don't like their business model.
|
| Everyone knew they couldn't keep being free for ever, and i
| believe it's only a beginning. one sponsored result per prompt
| ain't going to balance the expense.
| ericd wrote:
| [delayed]
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(page generated 2025-01-03 23:00 UTC)