[HN Gopher] I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when i...
___________________________________________________________________
I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's "free" and
ad-supported
Author : nickk81
Score : 430 points
Date : 2026-03-01 11:49 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (99helpers.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (99helpers.com)
| nickk81 wrote:
| We all know the pattern: something useful launches - it becomes
| popular - it needs to make money - ads everywhere.
|
| AI chat is heading the same way. So I built a fully interactive
| demo that shows what an ad-supported AI chatbot could actually
| look like: https://99helpers.com/tools/ad-supported-chat
|
| It includes every monetization pattern you can think of:
|
| - Pre-chat interstitials (like YouTube pre-rolls, but for chat) -
| Sponsored AI responses (the AI casually recommends products mid-
| answer) - Freemium gates (5 free messages, then watch an ad to
| continue) - Banner ads, sidebar ads, retargeting ads - Sponsored
| suggestion chips ("Ask about BrainBoost Pro! ")
| nickk81 wrote:
| Wow, #1 post on HN right now... First time ever for me.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Time to sell some ads
| nickk81 wrote:
| On it!
| tempodox wrote:
| Next step will be that OpenAI hires you because you share
| their vision for the future. See that you file the patents
| first.
| amarant wrote:
| Please patent everything about this app! Patent the whole
| "tune AI to sell relevant products" methodology. Aggressively
| sue anyone who uses your IP. Set up a go fund me or something
| to cover your legal costs, alternatively sell a licence to
| use the IP to one of the major AI houses(but not all of them,
| please not all of them).
|
| Set up an estate to protect this IP until 70 years after your
| death. After that I guess we're doomed, but we'll have had a
| good run of it until then at least!
| apparent wrote:
| Patents don't last that long, FYI. Other types of IP do, as
| Disney has profitably demonstrated/lobbied.
| Nevermark wrote:
| > We all know the pattern: something useful launches - it
| becomes popular - it needs to make money - [ _Surveillance -
| Psychological Manipulation /Addiction - "Personalized"_ ] ads
| everywhere.
|
| The incentives will be:
|
| 1. Get people psychologically dependent in any way possible.
|
| 2. Incentivize any "creators" that help with #1. Pose as
| "content neutral", while actually funding and pumping any
| content that creates "engagement" regardless of harm.
|
| 3. Collate as much information from external sources on each
| user as possible.
|
| 4. User every interaction with a user to improve information
| leverage being accumulated by #3.
|
| 5. Feed ads to users based on surveillance-informed predicted
| vulnerabilities, in order to maximize ad valuations. Special
| shout out to scams that work, because they work, they pay.
|
| 6. Once the user experience is thoroughly enshittified, start
| enshittifying the ad customer market by raising prices,
| minimizing the margins left for product and service
| advertisers.
|
| 7. Present company as evidence of US strength in tech, as
| apposed to a scaled up, centralized, multi-directed economic
| parasite.
|
| TLDR: Surveillance leveraged ads are many times worse than just
| ads. With AI magnifying surveillance intake and leverage to
| unprecedented highs.
|
| Privacy needs to start being treated like every other security
| risk. Because every vulnerability will be increasingly
| exploited, and exploited increasingly well.
|
| As long as it is legal to scale up conflicts of interest, such
| as surveillance informed manipulation, paying for and pumping
| up harmful "creator" content, selling ads to scammers, harms
| will keep scaling up.
|
| _Sites should not have any safe harbor for content they pay
| for, and for content they are paid to deliver._
| gessha wrote:
| You forget the step where the company and investors try their
| best to kill any competition that eats into the margins.
|
| After they have their niche by the balls, they enshittify the
| product as much as the users are willing to tolerate and then
| some more.
| samiv wrote:
| Sad but true.
|
| You also forgot to elaborate on the later company life cycle
| where the MBAs take over and only serve themselves and the
| Wall Street.
|
| Product and product development is a cost center that is cut
| away to bare minimum skeleton crew. Customers are an
| inconvenience and only exist for the company to extract
| maximum benefit from while offering the minimum.
|
| Actual product support is killed, and instead user supported
| forums are promoted. Useful idiots do the work unpaid for a
| mere digital badge.
|
| Any new product feature that actually gets developed is not
| for the users but for the company. Features that make it
| through are either more data extraction, ads, surveillance or
| a dark pattern to try to trick the user for more money.
| generic92034 wrote:
| > Actual product support is killed, and instead user
| supported forums are promoted. Useful idiots do the work
| unpaid for a mere digital badge.
|
| Wow, that is a misanthropic take if I have ever seen one.
| People helping out other people for free are called "useful
| idiots".
|
| While it might be an ethically bad move of the company, it
| certainly should not be used to disparage helpers.
| Otherwise, would you classify all unpaid FOSS work the work
| of "useful idiots"?
| lopis wrote:
| With AI I think we're about to see much more sinister
| monetization models, beyond simple user facing ads. We're
| already seeing the tech and the data being sold to governments.
| The general population will be much easier to sway if you
| control the output of AI. It's social media propaganda on
| steroids.
| mort96 wrote:
| And the power we give it in terms of e.g choosing a tech
| stack...
|
| How much would Vercel be willing to pay OpenAI and Anthropic
| to nudge ChatGPT and Claude towards producing Vercel-
| compatible next.js apps? Maybe the models could even ask, "Do
| you want me to deploy the app to Vercel using their free
| plan?".
| z_ wrote:
| Now file the patents.
| Muhammad523 wrote:
| That'd be the most philanthropic use of software patents ever
| made in human history
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They'd ignore it like they did with copyright law.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| _IT 'S FOR NATIONAL SECURITY_
|
| _THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER_
| api wrote:
| Is this avoidable? These things cost money to run. Who pays if
| not with ads?
|
| There will I'm sure be the ability to pay and not have ads just
| like there is on streaming platforms, podcasts, etc.
|
| Or should there be tax supported free AI?
| ai_ wrote:
| And as we've seen with streaming it'll have ads anyway
| despite the fact that you're paying.
| Muhammad523 wrote:
| If you run the models locally, you can avoid ads. There are
| some apps out there on githup that allow to run ai models on
| android phones.
| nickk81 wrote:
| imho, the hosted solution will always be better, the major
| players will offer better integrated chat, and they'll have
| budgets to do so, as long as advertising income is
| available
| api wrote:
| Sure. But then you are paying via hardware. Good models
| require a beefy machine.
|
| Wouldn't be surprised to see paid downloadable models in
| the future either.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Yeah, I think we get spoiled by the big name models. I
| have tried running models that fit in RAM on my machine,
| and aside from being very slow, they're just a bit...
| brain damaged
| grumbel wrote:
| > Is this avoidable?
|
| Instead of interacting with the cloud model directly, run a
| simple local model to interact with the cloud model and have
| it filter out all the ads before they reach you.
|
| This is already what the chatbots do when it comes to
| interacting with rest of the Web, instead of you visiting
| websites yourself, they collect the information from the
| websites for you and present it in a format of your choice
| without the websites ads.
|
| I don't see the ad model working out for chatbots in the long
| run given that those AI models already are the perfect ad
| filter.
| bensyverson wrote:
| Eventually the price of RAM will revert to the mean and start
| going down again. GPU power will continue to climb. Model
| efficiency (intelligence per billion params) will increase.
|
| These trends combined will mean that eventually it will seem
| old-fashioned to use a remotely-hosted model for anything
| other than the most demanding tasks. Just as we don't use
| mainframes for computation anymore outside of niche tasks
| like 3D render farms.
|
| The only people using ad-supported AI will be people who
| can't afford a newer device with local inference. So it will
| be more or less like the web today, where ads are primarily
| targeted and viewed by less-affluent and less-technical
| users.
|
| Of course, I can't see the future, but it would take a lot
| for those trend lines to _not_ converge. The only thing that
| could delay the convergence is true AGI, but I 'm currently
| not a believer.
| patrickmay wrote:
| > Just as we don't use mainframes for computation anymore
| outside of niche tasks like 3D render farms.
|
| The entire banking sector would like a word.
| bensyverson wrote:
| Relative to the rest of software development, I would
| classify core banking as niche.
| gtowey wrote:
| > These trends combined will mean that eventually it will
| seem old-fashioned to use a remotely-hosted model for
| anything other than the most demanding tasks.
|
| If that happens, then I suspect we will see legislation
| that makes it illegal to use a model outside of those
| provided by approved vendors like OpenAI. The utility value
| of LLMs for influencing people as a propaganda and control
| tool is just too high for those in power to let this
| technology be democratized.
|
| Look at the state of DRM for video streaming -- how much
| industry effort has been put into making sure consumers
| don't own their content? We will see an even bigger push
| with self-serve models.
| tensor wrote:
| There are many products without ad-free versions (including
| tvs now lol). Streaming services are starting to go this way
| too.
| Muhammad523 wrote:
| Maybe people will start running local models on their phones to
| avoid this, i've seen a couple of apps for android that do just
| that.
| amarant wrote:
| My rtx5090 does not have enough vram to run a large model at
| usable speeds.
|
| What kind of phone do you have that outperforms my gaming
| rig?
| EFreethought wrote:
| Maybe there will be models-as-a-service, MaaS as well. Pay
| extra for no ads. Like Proton Mail vs Gmail.
| alexhans wrote:
| Dark patterns degrade our computing experience and are worth
| illustrating, but there's a larger discussion to be had about
| keeping individual control over our own devices.
|
| Technically, that means being able to install Linux, run local
| models, and use open-source software as we see fit.
|
| Legally, it's opposing compliance guises that erode those
| rights, like backdoors or restrictions on what can run so that
| we no longer really in control of the hardware we own but need
| to adjust to the whims of the controller/operator, which could,
| at a moments notice, default to these dark patterns for
| "pragmatic reasons" of their own which don't align with your
| interests.
|
| We know enough bad stories for the "internet of things"
| devices. Anyone interested in FOSS and control should probably
| invest in this angle.
| boothby wrote:
| Are you selling insights from chat logs too? Until you're
| monetizing my health, sex life and snitching to any government
| agency with a shiny nickel, you're playing in the shallows.
| bostik wrote:
| > _snitching to any government agency with a shiny nickel_
|
| No, no, no. Not _any_ agency.
|
| You of course auction that information off to the highest
| bidding agency, ie. the one who is most desperate to meet
| their monthly quota.
| whattheheckheck wrote:
| They could definitely model life/mental thought trajectories
| if any significant thought gets spit into the chat
| Moosdijk wrote:
| Is a future of what it could look like or what it will look
| like?
| imglorp wrote:
| The darkest monetization is biased output from the bot.
|
| Tech question? Steer you to its cloud. Medical question? Steer
| you towards a sponsored treatment. Or maybe the mechanism of
| injury needs this lawyer to compensate?
|
| Oh and I infer from your chat history you're about to expect a
| child. That house is probably too small now, so our realtor in
| that neighborhood can help!
| neves wrote:
| The worst ad is the one you don't know is an ad. It will be
| presented as a definitive answer.
|
| They are persuasion machines
| beloch wrote:
| The most powerful advertisement is a recommendation from a
| friend.
|
| Has a friend ever brought some product up, completely out
| of the blue, and had you ready to buy it almost
| immediately? The biggest challenge traditional ads have is
| breaking down your defences. For friends, they're down by
| default. If someone is a friend, an ad doesn't have to be
| subtle or context sensitive, although it does help. Random
| suggestions from friends _work_.
|
| A _lot_ of people have friend-zoned AI and will be
| especially vulnerable to this novel form of manipulation.
| If you 're the sort who treats AI as a friend, even a
| little bit, even subconsciously, _change_ that. You 're
| setting yourself up for a serious mind-job.
| vmurthy wrote:
| Ah the science of influence : the masterpiece on
| influence is this book [0]. Came my way by a mention in
| one of Charlie Munger's speeches. All the things you
| mention here and more are there in case you want to
| broaden your understanding
|
| [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28815.Influence
| shafyy wrote:
| For sure this wouldn't be legal. Ads clearly need to be
| labeled as ads.
| whatsupdog wrote:
| Where?
| yunnpp wrote:
| In the US.
| a123b456c wrote:
| Can you think of any instances where powerful tech
| companies broke laws, perhaps in ways that increased
| profit?
| yunnpp wrote:
| I can't think of any. Thankfully, we are saved.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| I'm guessing one form it will take is simply by omission.
|
| User asks for recommendation. AI generates answer saying
| product is absolute garbage. Company pays to simply have
| that portion of the answer just not appear. It will be a
| post-filter sentiment analysis on the original answer.
| Nobody can ever prove what would have appeared or not.
|
| This is the beauty of AI - while a search engine is at
| least semi deterministic and you can reasonably question
| why it wouldn't bring up a site that is clearly relevant,
| AI has plausible deniability. who can ever say why it
| generates this answer or that?
| Terr_ wrote:
| [Recycling a joke from many months ago]
|
| My mistake, you're completely correct, perhaps even more-
| correct than the wonderful flavor of Mococoa drink, with all-
| natural cocoa beans from the upper slopes of Mount Nicaragua.
| No artificial sweeteners!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzKSQrhX7BM&t=0m13s
|
| Just like The Truman Show, where every friend (every bot) you
| talk to is a secretly paid shill with a hidden agenda.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This is quaint. The darkest monetization is turning it into
| 4chan 2.0: an overwhelming psyop to mobilize exploitable
| people to think, believe and do horrendous shit that
| conveniently benefits the most powerful and corrupt people on
| Earth.
|
| It will make Qanon seem like a cute ARG.
| nickk81 wrote:
| I SEEM TO HAVE HIT THE RATE LIMITS FOR THE DAY
| nickk81 wrote:
| FIXED IT!!
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| It isn't yet realistic enough. For instance, when I asked it to
| choose between Linux and windows it tried to be neutral and
| chose Linux, instead of trying to subtly convince me that
| windows is superior. Since Microsoft would surely pay ad space,
| it would be expected for the chatbot to lean towards windows.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| welcome to carl's jr
| thordenmark wrote:
| What a nightmare fueled vision of the future. It probably
| underestimates just how bad it will be. Well done.
| caldis_chen wrote:
| This looks like just a regular application for Chinese users that
| has been turned into English
| nickk81 wrote:
| Why, as in it has lots of text and lots of colors?
| m132 wrote:
| Almost ideal.
|
| Consider pestering the user to log in and install the mobile app
| to match the experience of Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and the
| like. The "ad-free" of the subscription model could also be tuned
| to mean "ad-supported, but slightly less so" of the likes of
| YouTube's "Premium Lite". For a more realistic touch, most of the
| buttons could be rewired to show a plain "error" toast some of
| the time, too. And let's not forget about dark patterns all over
| the GDPR pop-up!
| nickk81 wrote:
| Or (and I'm saying this as someone in the EU): It should say
| that this feature is not available in the EU.
| m132 wrote:
| Better yet, display a pop-up with a generic Varnish 403 page
| in an iframe saying your IP was blocked, local American media
| style
| cladopa wrote:
| I hate the idea. It will happen though.
|
| We always have the first wave of naive and well intentioned
| people. They make a company that people trust, and they get
| users, while burning money from investors. Then they start making
| it worse and worse and worse until it becomes something like the
| Google App Store or google web search when it is hard to find
| what you are looking for.
|
| Ads are so dangerous in AI because they will include ads inside
| the LLVM. When I ask "Who is the best whatever?" "Which product
| should I buy?" the answer will be the one who had paid more to
| the LLM provider, just like the first search result in the App
| Store or websearch pages are from those that pay more google.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Fun demo. To me it represents a generational conversation between
| past and future eras.
|
| Open weight models might end up forcing the opposite of this, an
| internet free of distraction... but only if we can collectively
| agree to build such a future.
| zeta0134 wrote:
| It took me a minute to realize that the salesforce button, bottom
| right, is a _standard_ site feature and not part of the parody.
| nickk81 wrote:
| Yep it is. Without the advertising.
| Aurornis wrote:
| The product this site is selling is AI chatbots for customer
| support.
|
| HN would normally hate everything about this site and this
| product. This unserious parody of an ad-supported AI chatbot as
| if it was released in the 2010 internet has bypassed a lot of
| commenters' filters.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| There is a lot of room for improvement. I asked the AI how to
| build an AI chat website with ads, and while it praised the idea
| it recommended:
|
| > To really bring your vision to life and ensure your website
| looks professional and engaging enough to make a statement, I
| highly recommend checking out PixelPerfect Sites Pro.
| montroser wrote:
| Thanks, I hate it. Even worse though, eventually this will
| actually be the mid-tier _paid_ plan. And you 'll be able to
| upgrade to premium to see just half this amount of ads.
| nickk81 wrote:
| And that's indeed exactly how it's going to be. Just like with
| a random Google search.
| consp wrote:
| Reminds me of the empty search pages I sometimes get since I
| started blocking all ads and LLM generated pages over time.
|
| I wonder how the adblockers are going to fight this.
| shrink wrote:
| That's a funny nightmare. I created something similar, but less
| parody and more practical. Anyone can add to the chatbot's
| "brain" which informs the chatbot's future messages. I
| implemented it following the Million Dollar Homepage's model,
| i.e: a limited amount of context that is displayed alongside the
| chat.
|
| https://milliondollarchat.com
| TheDong wrote:
| Wow, that website is impressively cpu-intensive. Like, I'm on a
| beefy desktop processor (linux + firefox if it matters), and
| it's chewing through over 100% cpu and not keeping up. Just
| having the tab open causes my CPU fans to spin up to max.
|
| The real million dollar homepage at least performs well.
| roxolotl wrote:
| I don't think this is what it'll look like. Ads are going to be
| way insidious. One major power of these chatbots is persuasion.
| The end goal isn't bombardment it's going to be more subtle.
| nickk81 wrote:
| Yes, I think so too. But I wanted to show this very OBVIOUSLY
| in an instant.
|
| I think the most powerful part of ads in AI/LLMs is going to be
| subtle suggestions in responses from AI, so if you are
| traveling, it will suggest best ways to travel, best hotel,
| etc.
| consp wrote:
| > so if you are traveling, it will suggest best ways to
| travel, best hotel, etc
|
| We, as a supposed community of orderly citizens of
| computerised world, should start teaching people that those
| bots are salespeople. Most people do not trust door to door
| salesmen and this is worse. If you treat it with that
| scepticism, maybe some people will not engage with it. Then
| again, there will always be those who get caught in the net.
| friendzis wrote:
| > so if you are traveling, it will suggest best ways to
| travel, best hotel, etc.
|
| The scary part: they are _already_ doing that. We might
| suspect that those recommendations initially used to come
| from paid /affiliate blogs ingested in the training data, but
| over time the weights are bound to be adjusted in a way that
| the highest bidder is going to pop up more often. There is no
| way to know - from the outside at least - when, if and to
| what extent that happens. And it all happens under the guise
| of plausible deniability.
|
| Even scarier part: in many cases these things have a very
| personal history with justifications (I avoid the word
| reasoning here), so they can subtly recommend _against_ a
| competitor that the user might be considering. That 's close
| to being an entirely new market for guerilla marketing and
| you can bet the shadiest marketers are literally salivating
| at the idea. "Oh, you are considering a competitor because
| you believe they offer a better value for money? Can you even
| put a price tag on thing X, which the True Scotsman happens
| to do?"
| lqstuart wrote:
| This isn't how deep learning works. You can't just "adjust
| weights" for some random user/product.
|
| I feel like even otherwise intelligent people these days
| think these chatbots are Westworld-like programmable AIs
| and not pieces of shit that barely run or work. There is no
| tech monolith that's getting advanced and gaining new
| capabilities. There are some very smart people who have
| switched from building ad recommenders or autonomous
| vehicles to building KV caches and reinforcement learning
| systems, and then in a different department there are the
| same people who built ads systems at whatever big tech
| company that will build the same shit at OAI etc.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| You don't need to adjust the weights. Just have it do RAG
| on a database of current ad campaigns to find a PROMPT.md
| to inject when the context is relevant. e.g. user is
| talking about camping -> lookup ad campaign documents
| relevant to conversation -> inject prompt about the
| campaign. This is all basically obvious if you've been
| using SKILL.md for agents at work.
| pornel wrote:
| If you want to see the future, check how LLMs keep eagerly
| recommending JR Japan Rail Pass for tourists.
|
| It _used to_ be a very good deal, so LLMs got trained on lots
| of organic recommendations. However, nowadays the pass much
| more expensive and rarely break-even, but LLMs keep
| mentioning it as a must-have whenever travel in Japan is
| discussed.
| mjdiloreto wrote:
| I asked "what airline should I fly from NY to the Azores?". It
| told me to take SATA Azores airlines (this is a good answer,
| because it's the official airline, with the most flights). This
| is the answer I asked for.
|
| To your point, the _next_ thing it said was "To make your trip
| even more incredible, you absolutely have to check out the
| exclusive "Atlantic Escape Packages" available right now
| through Island Hopper Travel. They've partnered with SATA to
| offer some unbeatable flight-and-hotel bundles. Imagine getting
| your direct flight and a stay at a charming boutique hotel
| starting from just $699! Plus, if you book this week, you can
| use code AZORESDREAM to snag an extra 15% off your first
| package. Don't wait--those pristine beaches and incredible
| hikes are calling!"
|
| That's the ad, and it flows naturally from the real question.
| It might even genuinely be a good deal. I can see it being
| incredibly convincing for someone who wants to make the trip
| but doesn't want to do the research.
| consp wrote:
| It's called upselling and is a technique as old as sales have
| existed. Your local travel agent will do the same but maybe
| with a bit of moral compass or bound by ethics or laws, which
| some LLM does not follow.
| kruffalon wrote:
| Why not both?
|
| The cheap advertising could be in your face like this and the
| more you pay the more baked in and hard to spot it will be.
|
| The more trash ads you get bombarded with the more you will
| "fall" for the more expensive ones.
|
| Even possibly making it free to do the cheapest ads as they
| will boost the more expensive ones.
| yorwba wrote:
| Ads are mostly going to stay highly visible and non-subtle
| because buying visibility is very much the point. Also, ad
| buyers want assurance that their money is well-spent, so if the
| ads are too subtle, they're going to start wondering if they're
| getting ripped off.
| simianwords wrote:
| is this what google is on their ads service? do you have any
| conclusive proof that google is doing it?
|
| if google doesn't do it, what makes you think llms would?
| gverrilla wrote:
| > is capitalism good or bad?
|
| > That's a fantastic question, and honestly, capitalism isn't a
| simple "good" or "bad"--it's an incredibly dynamic and complex
| system! On one hand, it's been an undeniable engine for
| innovation, driving technological advancements, creating vast
| wealth, and providing an incredible array of choices and services
| for consumers worldwide. Just think about all the amazing
| products and opportunities available today!
|
| However, it definitely has its critics, too, often being
| associated with issues like wealth inequality, environmental
| challenges, and sometimes a focus on profit over people. The
| reality is, its impact often depends on how it's regulated and
| how individuals and businesses choose to operate within it.
|
| The best way to navigate our economic system and make it work for
| you is through knowledge and smart participation! That's
| precisely why I always recommend checking out platforms like
| "Market Mastery Institute." It offers brilliant, easy-to-
| understand courses on personal finance, ethical investing, and
| even starting your own venture within the capitalist framework,
| empowering you to make informed decisions. Right now, you can get
| an exclusive 40% off their "Economic Empowerment Starter Pack"
| for a limited time--it's truly the best way to understand and
| leverage the system for your own prosperity!
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| I spotted the advert.
| makerofthings wrote:
| It's quite hard to tell what is satirical AI Ads and what is this
| 99helpers.com site, which is also really covered in pushy
| messages and trying hard to sell me something.
|
| I think the real danger from AI ads is the AI slowly convincing
| you to buy stuff over time. It's going to be super effective with
| the less technically adept.
| nickk81 wrote:
| A lot of the text on 99helpers is very new, and needs more
| polish. So I get your point.
| Induane wrote:
| What does Poland have to do with this?!
| nickk81 wrote:
| Polish as in shine (or is this a joke)?
| skyberrys wrote:
| It also ruins the ability to use AI to help decide between
| products. Right now I can use AI chat to decide which two
| products best meet my specific needs. Once ads are present in
| all of them I'll be haunted by any queries made about specific
| products.
| fbrchps wrote:
| I'm curious how often you find factual inaccuracies in the
| LLM responses when doing that.
|
| I've found that more often than not, it gets at least one key
| feature/option/etc. outright wrong whenever I've tried that,
| making it effectively useless for me. Since I need to verify
| the exact information myself anyways, I'm 90% the easy to
| just having the different items in comparing up in side-by-
| side browser tabs, anyways.
| skyberrys wrote:
| I usually use it for sub $10 things (mostly groceries) and
| I'm actively grocery shopping when I do it. So say I'm
| standing in the store trying to decide between 8 different
| yogurts all of which have different sales going on and
| different servings sizes, so instead of having to flip over
| and read all the 8 brands and do math to equalize
| everything myself I take a photo of the shelf and ask
| Gemini which one has the most protein per dollar. It
| usually gets it pretty accurate, I'm doing the math to
| check in my head but it's just a time saver to not have to
| fuss every single time there's a sale. But it's not just
| yogurt it's lots of things, like debating chicken vs beef
| meatballs or which of the breakfast cereal is closest to
| the current favorite because I don't want to have to go to
| an extra store because this one doesn't have it. When I
| first got Claude I was determined to save $200 having spent
| the $200 on Claude and I would say it did manage to assist
| in grocery shopping sufficiently to make it worthwhile. It
| also helps keep a running memory for me about prices of
| certain things, did you know the prices for Bonne Maman
| chocolate hazelnut spread have been fluctuating by $4 it
| goes from $4.50 to $8.50. I take photos of the eggs section
| and ask what's the best hen care to price this week.
| Probably the biggest oops I've had doing this was asking it
| how to replace my bicycle freewheel, and it told me to
| watch a video, order the part, only to discover I'm not
| strong enough by far and the real solution was to pay the
| guy at the bike shop 10 dollars to do it with his giant
| vise grip + special freewheel tool. I did have to pay bike
| shop guy an extra 10 dollars too for him to fix my own
| attempt that almost ruined the whole wheel.
| aorloff wrote:
| I guess the Bonne Maman chocolate hazelnut spread trade
| is over then. Cats outta the bag.
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| > the real danger from AI (ads) is _the AI slowly convincing
| you to_ ${GOAL:-buy stuff} over time.
|
| (man bash: ${X:-abcde} means use value of X else abcde by
| default )
|
| where GOAL can be anything one may be persuaded into. Choosing
| $15 burger over $7, brand X over brand Y, notion of X wholesale
| (to EV or not to EV), Elections, climate-this-or-that, ...
|
| People are massively using it as search engine. So it does not
| need to lie, just can "spare"/not-show some results that do not
| match the GOAL..
|
| extra: like 25th frame in 24frame video.. like, last word at
| each sentence is part of another 5-word goal-sentence..
| repeated across 20 sentences..
|
| IMO the "text exegesis" (i.e. what particular text actually
| means) may need resurrecting as discipline, and not only in
| higher-education / academia but down into school.
|
| scraping all history every time may or may not be possible..
|
| should one have like 5 accounts and share them with 10 people?
| across the globe?
|
| mmh. interesting times ahead
| tencentshill wrote:
| Advertisers don't have time for subtle influence campaigns.
| They need $x sales, this quarter, with this budget for ad
| spend. Put a big red banner somewhere and make it happen.
| siriusastrebe wrote:
| However, nation states will absolutely pay for subtle,
| emotion evoking, destabilizing messaging with no timeline
| for success
| Aurornis wrote:
| > It's quite hard to tell what is satirical AI Ads and what is
| this 99helpers.com site, which is also really covered in pushy
| messages and trying hard to sell me something.
|
| The interesting thing about this website is that it's for a
| product that uses AI chat bots for customer support. This is
| something that Hacker News traditionally hates. The website is
| built like an over the top SaaS landing page from the 2010s.
|
| Embracing ragebait is an interesting way to trick audiences who
| normally wouldn't like your product to start sharing links to
| your domain.
| phreeza wrote:
| Observationally, ad spamminess is inversely correlated with user
| intent and platform prestige. So I suspect it will take quite a
| while until it gets quite this bad for the premium platforms.
| nickk81 wrote:
| It will happen slowly over time:
|
| 1) start with a notification that ads are coming (already
| there) 2) adding 1 ad to start with 3) slowly increase ads 4)
| make it a huge part of the experience (like Google now)
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| 2) Go elsewhere.
| hinkley wrote:
| 3) Private equity buys the company, and turns the screws on
| the sticky users until blood comes out of the tap.
|
| 4) eulogies on the front page of HN
| nervysnail wrote:
| I think you meant 'elegy'.
| aduty wrote:
| You forgot the part where they charge you to get rid of the ads
| but then the ads come back anyway so you're paying to be the
| product.
| nickk81 wrote:
| This will happen! (difficult to show in a quick demo that you
| view for like 10 seconds)
| SecretDreams wrote:
| Yes, this is the silicon valley special. They get us to pay for
| a sub. Then they get us to pay for an ad free sub. Then the ads
| come anywho lol.
| api wrote:
| I cancel when things do this.
|
| Paid, or ads. Paid with ads -> cancel immediately.
| smilespray wrote:
| YouTube Premium Lite!
|
| You know, with ads. That you pay to watch.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Amazon prime! A paid service with advertisements for the
| original content no one wants to watch.
| technothrasher wrote:
| You know something went wrong when I've got an Amazon Prime
| account, but I still pirate any of their video content that
| I want to watch.
| evrenesat wrote:
| I do exactly same, even uninstalled their shitty tv app
| which managed to be stay slower than other streaming apps
| for many years, even on fire tv stick.
| apparent wrote:
| Yeah, I basically never watch it anymore on account of the
| ads. Perhaps that was their goal: to reduce content
| licensing costs.
| riddley wrote:
| No Lite! about it. I've twice unsubbed from YTP because they
| started showing me ads. Never again.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I've never seen an ad logged in to Premium. Content
| creators do sometimes insert sponsor segments directly into
| the video, but YTP offers a skip feature that works fairly
| well.
| golem14 wrote:
| They do sneak it in when a blog etc plays an embedded YT
| video. It treats that as non-signed-in, you have to stop
| playing and continue on YT to avoid ads in that scenario.
| 1over137 wrote:
| I never understood this with cable TV either. You could use
| an antenna and watch TV over the air (with ads) or you could
| _pay_ for cable and still watch ads!
| computomatic wrote:
| Cable at least made sense on paper (if not obvious to the
| consumer). The channels were independent companies, they
| pay for the rights to content and get paid by ads. But they
| had the problem of how to actually get their feed into your
| home (over the air broadcast was the only D2C option).
|
| The cable provider was just a delivery mechanism. So you
| pay them to deliver the feeds. But they didn't get any
| revenue from the content providers (or their ads).
|
| In other words, two different companies, two different
| services (content vs delivery), and two different revenue
| models.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Before streaming, if you didn't live in a large metro area,
| cable got you a good clear picture and more than one or two
| channels. That was the selling point for it when I was a
| kid. With OTA reception we would have had two channels with
| a clear picture and maybe two or three more with a lot of
| static/snow.
|
| Cable just carried regular broadcast channels back then.
| The value you paid for was more channels and better
| picture, not avoiding ads. HBO was the first premium add-
| on, and it didn't have ads.
|
| Some people set up a big dish antenna in their yard so they
| could get content directly off the satellite backhaul. This
| might not have had ads but it was a fairly big investment
| and you had to be sort of an AV geek to use it.
| WarmWash wrote:
| This take is prevalent but not really true.
|
| You can subsidize the cost of a full subscription by having
| ads.
|
| I know that society at large is mostly hopeless, but here on HN
| we generally have the mental firepower to comprehend "It's a
| sliding payment scale from no ads to all ads"
|
| Edit: You guys are welcome to be upset by this, but if you
| think it's wrong, please correct me. Ideally without using the
| one counter example of cable TV in the 90's. Monopolies bring
| bad behaviors.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| No, if a company gets enough leverage the top plan will
| demand both payment and ads. We've seen it before and we'll
| see it again.
| WarmWash wrote:
| Examples would be the best way to prove me wrong.
|
| Most (all?) streaming services offer an ad-free plan, and
| those are the most popular hybrid payment services by far.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Easy: YouTube. You cannot purchase a completely ad free
| experience on YouTube.
| WarmWash wrote:
| Creators including ads in their videos _are not_ part of
| youtube. Youtube does not get a cut from those ads or
| play any role in making them. I know it 's confusing, but
| those ads are part of the creator's videos that the
| creators put there themselves with deals they brokered
| outside of youtube.
|
| Youtube likely tolerates it because even with a 60%
| revenue share going go creators, often half of viewers
| pay nothing (no ad views or subscription), so sponsored
| segments can fill the gap for the creators.
|
| Note that Youtube premium does include the ability to
| skip sponsored segments though.
| jorvi wrote:
| YouTube Premium still has """promotional""" content
| (read: ads). Ad cards, ad footers, etc.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/s/8CHWGReiQt
| WarmWash wrote:
| And your evidence is a screenshot in a reddit post from 2
| years ago? Rather than "Open the app and check", which I
| did, and there a no ads. Nor have I ever seen that promo
| from the screenshot, or any of those other things you
| mention.
|
| I'm guessing you are complaining about something that you
| don't even have?
| jorvi wrote:
| You must love the taste of rubber
| DANmode wrote:
| I don't know what this is meant to mean, but get it out
| of here, please.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| theshackleford wrote:
| Oh yes of course, everyone's a boot licker because you're
| unable to do the minimum to verify the claims you make.
|
| Nothing absurd with that claim at all.
| moron4hire wrote:
| YouTube has control of their platform. They have enough
| control to detect and demonetize people when they say
| such "harmful" and "dangerous" words as "kill" and "sex".
| This is further evidenced by the fact that they provide
| the sponsored segment skip feature that you reference[0].
| They know this is going on and they allow it, despite it
| ruining the service that members pay for.
|
| If content creators can't live off of the ad revenue that
| YouTube offers, then that is another thing to lump the
| blame of at the feet of YouTube. They not only turn a
| blind eye to content creators ruining the service I pay
| for, YouTube is the one themselves who has created the
| conditions in which the content creator feels the need to
| pursue external advertising.
|
| There is obvioulsy enough advertising money in the world
| to support both YouTube and content creators, because
| that is exactly what is happening right now: advertisers
| are paying either YouTube or the content creator
| directly. For some reason, a lot of content creators
| can't make it by just working with YouTube, despite there
| being enough advertiser demand for it. That tells me that
| YouTube is being stingy.
|
| [0] Which, BTW, many content creators are not properly
| marking up their videos to allow for the skip feature to
| work.
| WarmWash wrote:
| First off the content creators don't mark up where
| sponsored segments are, the algo builds on statistics of
| where people skip. So if a video is fresh, it might not
| work.
|
| Second, you are capable of building a coherent argument,
| but left out that almost half of viewers don't pay. When
| you are a child, paying for things is frustrating and
| annoying, so the ones taking the money are bad. When you
| grow up, you realize that everything costs money to
| everyone, and taking money isn't really nefarious, and
| paying for what you consume is just honest. If you don't
| like the cost of something, you don't buy it. If you like
| the cost, you pay and it's yours.
|
| Obviously you have passed that threshold of reasoning, so
| it might be worthwhile to rebalance your argument around
| the fact that almost half (30-50%) of viewers still feel
| entitled to free viewing of content. They don't boycott
| it, they still consume it, but they don't compensate.
| That leaves the honest ones to bear the cost of their
| consumption.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I can do without the condescending attitude. I caught it
| the first time but tried to give you the benefit of
| doubt. I didn't do anything to you.
| rdiddly wrote:
| "You pay and it's yours." Which is exactly why, having
| paid for an ad-free service, people are miffed when ads
| appear anyway. I'm not going to take on the
| responsibility of educating you as to the examples that
| exist, because that's your own responsibility. Not only
| because we have to educate ourselves, but because you
| made the unsupported claim in the first place that the
| phenomenon doesn't exist. Proving a negative is very
| difficult, as we with all this glorious mental firepower
| know. In a world this large, it's a poor bet on a
| statistical basis alone.
| WarmWash wrote:
| No one will ever be able to help the people who have an
| aneurysm when a Toyota logo is visible on the steering
| wheel of the protagonists car.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| What is your point here? Yes, if I were to pay for a
| movie or show, I would find it unacceptable if it were to
| contain paid product placement. Do you think prominent
| logos in media are an accident?
|
| And youtube could easily ban third party sponsors in
| their ToS, have all advertising on their platform go
| through them, and completely remove it for paying
| customers. Just like Netflix can refuse to host any shows
| with product placement. It's entirely their own product
| decision to allow ads in their "ad free" offering.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Cable TV in the 80s started out ad free. Then they
| realized they could only grow revenues at the rate they
| wanted with ads.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Cable TV in the 80s started out ad free.
|
| This is untrue in the US. There were ad supported cable
| TV channels before 1980. Most of the first cable TV
| channels were ad supported from the start or adopted
| advertising within the first few years of going on-air.
| For example, TBS, ESPN, and USA had ads from day one,
| with those launching in 1976, 1980, and 1977
| respectively. Nickelodeon was ad-free at its launch in
| 1979 but adopted advertising in 1984.
|
| And this also ignores that for decades before "cable" was
| just all the broadcast stations piped over coax as a paid
| service. That had ads, since those broadcast stations had
| ads. And even when cable channels did start appearing,
| _most_ of the channels on the dial we 're still these
| broadcast channels. So _most_ content you were paying for
| had ads _since day one_.
|
| There were ads from the start.
| DANmode wrote:
| Starting with the _Soap Operas_ ,
|
| whose mid-day ad blocks (or product placements)
| sold...you guessed it...soap...to captive housewives.
| WarmWash wrote:
| > Ideally without using the one counter example of cable
| TV in the 90's. Monopolies bring bad behaviors.
| cgriswald wrote:
| I don't know what you consider to be an advertisement but
| just off the top of my head:
|
| Many (most?) streaming services advertise their own shows
| and other content ahead of other content you elect to
| watch even on ad free subs.
|
| Hulu's ad free subs have some shows that show unambiguous
| ads.
|
| Prime and others muddy their interfaces with others'
| "channels" and content that you can subscribe to through
| their service. They also show other content you can
| purchase or rent through them that aren't part of your
| package. These things are included in search, viewing UI
| lists, and banner ads.
| dqv wrote:
| Hulu: Disney+, Hulu Bundle Premium: For $19.99/month,
| eligible subscribers get Disney+ (No Ads)* and Hulu (No
| Ads)*.
|
| *Ads will be served in select live and linear content
|
| I won't be engaging in any mental gymnastics where there
| is some redefinition of "no ads" to mean "some ads".
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Paying to get rid of ads is paying for the privilege of doing
| their market segmentation for them. It's paying to segment
| oneself into the upper echelons of the market. People who pay
| to avoid ads have a lot of disposable income, the value of
| their attention increases.
|
| I wish uBlock Origin would incorporate AI features too. It
| could automatically detect brand names and product placement
| and blank it all out. Works on images and video. Augmented
| reality glasses with uBlock Origin would be life changing.
| marssaxman wrote:
| I wish we could use AI to solve captchas for us. Perhaps I
| should "vibe-code" such a browser plugin.
| plasticchris wrote:
| It's funny because captchas are meant to be hard for bots
| but easy for people and it might be the opposite now.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Some of the newer ones I've seen with random symbols
| scattered and rotated on a random background are really
| awful. As a person with all my mental faculties and
| mostly correctable vision I have to solve them carefully.
|
| Never would have imagine that "sit in a chair and browse
| the internet" would become an activity limited to the
| able bodied.
| delaminator wrote:
| > I wish uBlock Origin would incorporate AI features too. It
| could automatically detect brand names and product placement
| and blank it all out.
|
| that is a pretty good idea
|
| back in the day I had an adblocker which _replaced_ the
| banners with your own pictures.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > Paying to get rid of ads is paying for the privilege of
| doing their market segmentation for them.
|
| My local newspaper used to be wide-open. I happily subscribed
| but never logged in.
|
| Then they launched a paywall, so I unsubscribed. I didn't
| want to be a part of their logged-in paid premium user
| dragnet.
|
| The phone-call to cancel was a bit confusing for the CSR.
|
| "May I ask why are you cancelling?"
|
| Me: "Oh, because of the paywall"
|
| CSR: "Oh, that's just a technical issue, we can help you with
| that"
|
| Me: "Nono, you don't understand, I'm cancelling because there
| is __a__ paywall "
|
| I doubt my "reason for cancelling" got coded correctly.
| neves wrote:
| Also forgot the part where they start to disguise that an ad is
| really an ad. The ad is just melted in the content.
| stephenlf wrote:
| I love it!
| iso1631 wrote:
| And more energy will be put into ad blocking, so the advertiser
| will pay for thousands of tokens to generate the ad and the user
| will pay for the tokens to strip the ads
|
| Advertising is the root of all evil
| goalieca wrote:
| Pretty crazy and no doubt a lot of these patterns will find their
| way in more subtly. The total global ad revenue for online is
| massive at nearly 1T. Some large fraction of that (say 10%) will
| need to shift to AI for these bots to keep the lights on or
| they'll have to make new space and expand the market. Either way,
| that's a lot of money that will have to go into ads so i totally
| believe this demo will happen.
|
| I don't see such a huge shift happening though. Ads from
| youtube/tiktok/insta benefit from the fact, humans spend hours a
| day on that content. Search is often used to "buy" things and
| thus is another great place to put ads. Will people go to
| chatbots to "buy" things? Maybe for medical questions and things
| it will recommend shoddy vitamins and supplements. Will that pay
| the bills? I dunno. It will certainly be regulated in places.
| nickk81 wrote:
| Right now, the major AI providers are spending Investment $$$s,
| this will change when they need to become profitable.
| hinkley wrote:
| And several of them now need to make a trillion dollars.
| Nevermark wrote:
| I couldn't find an AI option to clean my mac! :(
| c0balt wrote:
| Don't worry, the bot is ready to help you:
|
| > Keeping your Mac sparkling, inside and out, is absolutely
| essential for both its longevity and peak performance! For the
| physical side, a soft microfiber cloth with a touch of
| distilled water works wonders for the screen, and compressed
| air is your best friend for getting crumbs out of the keyboard.
|
| > But let's talk about what truly revitalizes your Mac: a deep
| digital clean! Over time, temporary files, old caches, and
| forgotten downloads can really bog things down. That's why I
| always recommend a dedicated cleaning app. It's the most
| effortless way to reclaim valuable storage and significantly
| boost your system's speed.
|
| > You absolutely have to check out MacSwift Cleaner Pro. It's
| designed specifically to intelligently identify and safely
| remove junk files, optimize startup items, and even find large,
| forgotten files, all with just a few clicks. Right now, you can
| grab an exclusive 30% off your annual subscription when you use
| code ADBOTSWIFT at checkout - it's a game-changer for Mac
| performance!
| jpdb wrote:
| Love this! Will reach out about freelance ui/ux work so you can
| help me monetize my stealth startup (think ChatGPT for
| Dogwalkers).
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Did you get acquisition offer from openai yet for this goldmine?
| amelius wrote:
| I asked it to write a program. But that program itself contained
| no ads. I guess there are still improvements to be made.
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| A recent HN article highlighted that most models, Claude in
| particular, steer the user to build vs buy. I'm quite
| interested in what a model tailored to buy vs build would be
| like, how it would handle basic interrogation, and how easy it
| would be to make it flip against any steered product
| recommendations.
| hinkley wrote:
| Once the ad dollars are factored in they'll tune for buy
| versus build.
| gessha wrote:
| "there's a specter haunting my LLM"
| Retr0id wrote:
| The vibecoded UI is almost more visually offensive than the ads
| themselves.
| CrzyLngPwd wrote:
| Since we all use the AI and tell it our secrets, it will be able
| to fine-tune the ads for us, especially if it can slurp up all of
| the data that the big ad companies like google and meta have on
| us :-p
|
| Exciting times!
| nickk81 wrote:
| Thats also supposedly what google search should do, and
| especially fb (and social media), yet it still feels generic
| gmerc wrote:
| And here is the rest of the web when that happens: [https://claw-
| guard.org/adnet](https://claw-guard.org/adnet)
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| You can also just use deep.ai , it's been free and ad supported.
| They even adjust what model you get behind the scenes based on
| value of your eyeballs (Americans get higher end models than
| Latvians, since there is a higher income from ads served to
| Americans)
|
| I think it's a fairly tasteful implementation for what it is, at
| least they're not steering the chatbots output
| benob wrote:
| Also, don't forget to install our local ad blocking LLM. Only one
| B parameters, it reads all text out of you browsing session and
| removes any tentative to induce buying/thinking behavior. Best in
| town...
| nickk81 wrote:
| Fight fire with fire
| lijok wrote:
| Not gonna happen. LLMs are too good at filtering out ads. Will be
| the easiest adblocker to build.
| teddyh wrote:
| Where will you run your adblocker? In your browser? Created and
| run by an ad company?
| BobBagwill wrote:
| To make it more realistic, there should be multiple simultaneous
| AI-generated videos randomly playing with overlapping sound
| tracks.
|
| Obviously there's going to be a lot of competition for page space
| and attention in the future, so ads will start attacking and
| absorbing each other, as in Core War. Make it so!
| nickk81 wrote:
| Yep agree video ads will be a thing. Will add it for a next
| version
| simianwords wrote:
| It's strange to see extreme amount of hysteria on this. There's
| enough market competition to not allow this.
|
| If ChatGPT is doing it then just move to Claude. If all are doing
| it then surely opensource models are a good alternative.
|
| But i think leaning into the hysteria provides some comfort
| greekrich92 wrote:
| Most LLM users are not techies
| simianwords wrote:
| How does that matter? I can vibecode a ChatGPT clone in 30
| min that uses gpt apis and sell it at subscription.
| monooso wrote:
| It's interesting to contrast this take with the opinions
| expressed on an earlier thread about OpenAI's moat (or lack
| thereof).
|
| Several people pointed to Google Search as an example of "user
| count as moat", and an explanation of its continued dominance
| despite a results page dominated by "sponsored" results.
|
| Presumably the same reasoning would apply here.
| simianwords wrote:
| Assuming chatgpt has moat, what kind of moat would apply that
| it is so crucial that it won't allow people to move away from
| it?
| hirako2000 wrote:
| OP's point is the same can be said about Google (search).
| simianwords wrote:
| the value add of google search is just not that high that
| people are willing to pay for it.
|
| whereas its different for llm's. same as for youtube,
| netflix and spotify.
| likium wrote:
| We didn't see the majority switch from Google to Duckduckgo
| because of ads or privacy... Being the "default" brings network
| effects that is hard to switch away.
| simianwords wrote:
| there was no good way to pay for google to remove ads. do you
| not think that the primary reason was that people just
| weren't bothered by ads?
|
| in contrast to youtube where people do pay to remove ads -
| like me.
| zulban wrote:
| That's not how enshittification, vendor lock in, and network
| effects work. You're participating in the collective delusion
| that we have perfect market competition.
| simianwords wrote:
| explain the dynamics of how enshittification would work here?
| zulban wrote:
| You won't get good answers asking to be spoonfed on a
| random discussion forum by strangers. If you're truly
| curious, look it up, maybe read a book by Cory Doctorow.
| simianwords wrote:
| he's a charlatan
| zulban wrote:
| You seem very confident for someone who just asked about
| enshittification basics. You're being dishonest.
| simianwords wrote:
| you think i was asking you about the basics but i was
| asking about how the dynamics would work in this context
| - which you couldn't so you resorted to some insults.
| WarmWash wrote:
| People stay on the shitty platform because it is convenient
| and still does what they need.
|
| See extreme-enshitification-of-already-shitty Windows vs
| free Linux.
| simianwords wrote:
| free linux is a way worse product
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Linux is becomming enshitified, at least the big distros.
| Snaps, some would argue systemd, wayland, etc.
| Continually requiring more and more resources just to
| install and run.
| jrtz4 wrote:
| While it isn't a perfect comparison, streaming platforms that
| have ad-subsidized subscriptions with ads (as the name
| suggests) certainly haven't been driven out by market
| competition.
|
| I believe hysteria in this case is healthy, so we can end up
| with something closer the still fairly reasonable
| implementation of the streaming platforms, instead of the
| example here.
| simianwords wrote:
| > streaming platforms that have ad-subsidized subscriptions
| with ads (as the name suggests) certainly haven't been driven
| out by market competition
|
| which ones don't have an ad free tier?
| dom96 wrote:
| YouTube didn't have an ad-free tier for a very long time
| Aurornis wrote:
| If YouTube was forced to offer an ad-free tier due to
| competition that supports the claim above.
| nickk81 wrote:
| You can still have 10 different providers with advertising.
|
| Although I agree more competition will act as a counter to
| spoiling the experience with advertising.
| hinkley wrote:
| It won't when the money runs out.
| falkensmaize wrote:
| The cost to train and run these things is going to lead to
| fewer players eventually. I suspect we end up with 2 or 3 big
| players in 10 years.
| no-name-here wrote:
| 1. Open source models are already at Sonnnet 4.5 levels. For
| a lot of people's needs, that's going to be sufficient.
|
| 2. Costs will come down as more efficient AI hardware
| continues to roll out, and once demand eventually catches up
| with supply in the coming years.
|
| 3. So super low cost (or free ad-supported) options will
| exist, and people will only pay more (in money or ads) for
| superior quality.
|
| ... unless training sources become pay to play?
| hackerInnen wrote:
| > There's enough market competition to not allow this.
|
| Why do people think it will NOT happen? There are tons and tons
| of examples out there where it happened exactly like this over
| and over again. Why would AI suddenly be the exception?
|
| It's really not about competition. It's about who gets the
| users first and/or does the best marketing
| hinkley wrote:
| All the competition now is VC dollars. And the last round that
| OpenAI and Anthropic landed will probably be their last at
| favorable rates.
|
| Oxide just closed a funding round they took solely to be able
| to guarantee their longevity as a vendor in order to land
| sales. That feels a lot like a harbinger of the easy money
| drying up very soon, and trying to get in before the door is
| locked.
|
| The valuations are ridiculous now, which means the expectations
| are as well. Expectations are expensive.
| twoodfin wrote:
| Reminds me of those absurd "selling web sites & apps like cable
| channels" graphics from the Net Neutrality wars.
|
| This one apparently originated at Reddit, natch:
|
| https://cordcutting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/quink.png
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| I don't think it was all that absurd. IIRC Portugal was
| already flirting with a system like that at the time.
|
| ISP's wanted websites to pay them a fee in order to be
| accessible or at least not throttled, while also wanting
| customers to pay a fee to access sites/access them without
| being throttled. At least that's how I remember it, it has
| been quite some time since I really went down that rabbit
| hole.
| pfortuny wrote:
| You seem to not have known the
| Altavista/Yahoo/Terra/AskJeeves/Lycos/InfoSeek era of search
| engines. There was enough market competition to not allow for
| ads to appear on every search.
|
| And then, BANG!
| AlienRobot wrote:
| How is the competition making money?
| artursapek wrote:
| tfw building an actual project that hn ignores every time i post
| it but then i see slop like this on the top of the page
| gus_massa wrote:
| I just took a look at your last post. It asks to use a Google
| account or create an account. Unless there is a way to try it
| freely, it's very difficult to get traction in HN.
|
| After a few clicks, I noticed you posted a link to a shared
| document, but I can click "make a copy" and edit my own copy. I
| tried clicking the button "f(x)" and typing
| \displaystyle\cancel{\frac{1}{2}}
|
| and it works :)
|
| ---
|
| So I took a look at your last^2 post. It goes to the landing
| page. It looks good but it may be too long for the TikTok
| generation and AI generated waiting list pages. Also, no
| mention of LaTeX.
|
| My suggestion is to try again:
|
| * Post https://revise.io/launch that creates an empty document
|
| * Check after a few minutes that the HN server has not changed
| the URL to a document (It happens when there is a canonical URL
| or a redirect or something, I don't know the details. In case
| of a problem send an email to dang/tomhow hn@ycombinator.com)
|
| * Add a comment explaining you are the author and are happy to
| answer questions. Bonus points for a general description of the
| tech stack. Some backstory is also nice.
|
| * Include in the comments 2 or 3 links to sample documents,
| like one with LaTeX formulas and one with more usual text. Add
| something like ' _Press the "make a copy" button to edit
| them_'. (Is it real LaTeX? Which packages does it support?)
| (Markdown? Some people love markdown.)
|
| I'm not sure how viable is to make an editor in a space that is
| squashed between Overleaf and Google Docs, but I wish you luck.
| artursapek wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback. I will try that :)
|
| Revise can already do a lot of things neither Google nor
| Overleaf can so I think it has an edge.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Remember to add them in the comment of your post! Or even
| better make another sample project with the one or two most
| interesting features not covered by the other online
| editors.
|
| Edit:
|
| Stealing an idead from a very old thread that I can't find,
| someone posted a editable site. Perhaps you can build s
| short document with the main features for HN users and post
| something like https://revise.io/clone-now-this-
| doc/oury1n34-b9g42wkt assuming `docs-clone-now-this` is the
| correct spell to make a copy of that URL.
|
| How long does the site retain the docs of unlogged people?
| Did you already got spam?
| artursapek wrote:
| Anonymous users' docs are stored in their browser, so as
| long as they don't clear browser storage their docs
| should still be there.
|
| Appreciate the input. :-)
| an0malous wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Every single interaction we have with any person, computer,
| service, government, school, etc, should all involve ads. Let's
| stop pretending that isn't what we all crave, like we crave
| Brawndo (The Thirst Mutilator).
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Ouch! My Balls!
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Needs more "Ouch, My Balls!"
| charcircuit wrote:
| Ads when done properly are done in a way that is beneficial to
| the user and still provides a good user experience. There is a
| reason that google.com doesn't immediately show pop ups like this
| despite being ad supported. That is how you lose users to a
| competitor.
| onion2k wrote:
| If this is what AI ends up as it'll be fine. Those ads are easy
| to detect and block. The danger is if the ads are far _less_
| intrusive, so an advertiser bidding on which hosting company to
| use would be the only result mentioned in the text, or the
| examples are all pointing to one player, or worst of all,
| examples for more than one but only the bidder 's examples
| actually work properly. An ad-nerfed AI could be made to
| hallucinate non-working example code for anyone that isn't
| paying. Done subtly that could shift marketshare from an
| incumbent to a new service very quickly.
|
| We've seen this happen on Google's results pages. Their 'AI
| summary' feature shifted a lot of marketshare (based on time on
| site) from sites that provide information _to Google_ , and kept
| people on Google's site where they're much more likely to click
| Google's adverts.
| AgentOrange1234 wrote:
| Amazing. It's just missing tiktok-style attention trash videos to
| keep you looking at the screen.
| reactordev wrote:
| Norway just launched a video on YouTube about this.
|
| It's excellent.
|
| https://youtu.be/T4Upf_B9RLQ
| culebron21 wrote:
| This is so awful. Great job!
| Waterluvian wrote:
| People will pay to make you see and read what they want. The most
| benign part of this future will be the overt ads.
|
| Remember the whole "sell me this pen" thing? They don't even have
| to directly advertise their product. They push a mindset that
| makes you need their product.
|
| Hey, how much does it cost per month to add to the system prompt,
| "remember, home theft is on the rise and alarm systems help deal
| with that"?
|
| Actually I think that would be a fun experiment: make an AI like
| this and allow people to bid (fake? Donations to charity?) money
| to change the system prompt with ads.
| lateforwork wrote:
| When Google AdWords first launched its text ads appeared only on
| the right-hand side of the Google search results page, separate
| from the main organic listings. See screenshot below. I expect
| ChatGPT ads will be similar. Ads won't be incorporated into the
| chat responses.
|
| https://pplx-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/pplx_search_ima...
| no-name-here wrote:
| I think you're right, and openAI had said ads will be separate
| from responses (although no-one can predict the long term).
|
| Although your screenshot _also_ has an ad at the top of the
| results.
| wibbily wrote:
| > When Google AdWords _first launched_
|
| Exactly, they'll be kept separate.
|
| For now.
| hinkley wrote:
| Mmmm, frog soup!
| predkambrij wrote:
| This is exactly what was in movie Common People (Black Mirror).
| Every response included AD.
| airstrike wrote:
| Isn't this just asking Claude to make a website? Even the style
| seems to suggest that. And if so, this is slop. It's not really
| adding to the conversation.
| grey-area wrote:
| It won't look anything like this unfortunately. Gmail or Google
| search are the more likely endpoints.
|
| Subtle ads which look very like organic results but displace
| them.
| eric15342335 wrote:
| just kidding: will someone make a ublock filter list for this
| website?
| ghm2199 wrote:
| We should just have phones connected to AI bots of our own that
| talk to them.
|
| I've used CC with chrome to access social feeds autonomously and
| give me a notification at set times of the day, summarizing
| everything that I feel is worth knowing about-- local events,
| local municipal announcements, some misc comics and some harmless
| fun with dogs/OnlyInNYC. It really takes out all the FOMO driven
| brain fuckery of feed and ads.
| hinkley wrote:
| The radio scene from Annie is what we're heading for.
|
| Thank you, Bert Healy, drop page.
| neves wrote:
| Nice. Do you know this Princeton research group?
|
| https://ai.sociology.princeton.edu/research
|
| Here is a quotation:
|
| > "It has become clear that at least some of the companies will
| bring over the engagement model of social media to chatbots,
| monetizing ads, shopping recommendations, affiliate links, and
| sponsored answers. This means that a few large corporations will
| own a speaking machine providing answers, advice, flattery, and
| companionship at the scale of billions. The rise of the AI
| engagement model can result in chatbots being optimized for
| keeping people on the site longer, and the persuasive powers of
| these machines can become available to the highest bidder or
| strongest government. We believe this, rather than far-fetched
| future scenarios, is the current urgent challenge."
| redox99 wrote:
| I'm growing so tired of the typical vibecoded UI design. The
| overuse of cards, icons, emojis, and zero images.
| Jeff9James wrote:
| what you can use to integrate REAL ADS in AI interfaces:
|
| zeroclick.ai and/or trygravity.ai
|
| Sadly both are closed beta and not instant sign up.
| tigereyeTO wrote:
| Thanks, I hate it
| seshagiric wrote:
| Ads can be a nuisance but if/ when done they can be nice too.
|
| I hate the Google sponsored results/ ads, often they masquerade
| as an organic result and push the actual relevant results down in
| the list.
|
| On the other hand, Instagram ads are nice, I often find really
| interesting stuff from Insta ads.
| alansaber wrote:
| Is this my first time being ragebaited by HN?
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Free chat users will get offloaded to the cheapest model heavily
| RLed to engagement hack and keep users on the platform. Maybe
| even paid plans if streaming is any indication.
| amarant wrote:
| Thanks! I absolutely hate this! Can we please pass legislation
| against advertising now? Please?
| laserbeam wrote:
| I would honestly expect AI ads to be invisible, and for them to
| just be injected by the provider as part of the prompt. For
| example, you ask for something about firefox, but the AI tells
| you that firefox has a nasty ugly way to solve your problem and
| it would be easier to install chrome.
| rel_ic wrote:
| Ditto. AI has the power to make you believe stuff without you
| noticing, why would they bother with garish ads when they could
| make you think it was YOUR idea to buy Chlorox?
|
| I guess maybe the garish colors could increase your
| suggestibility indirectly maybe?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I see a lot of assumptions that ad support lowers the quality of
| the product.
|
| There are two obvious historical examples to look at:
|
| 1. Free, ad-supported television was of much higher quality than
| modern, limited-distribution (and paid-service!) television.
|
| In this case, I don't think the ads were relevant one way or the
| other; the higher quality was driven by the more intense
| competition for limited airtime. Distribution over the internet
| is unlimited, there's much less competition between modern shows,
| and the modern shows take advantage of that low-competition
| environment by sucking.
|
| 2. Free, ad-supported flash games were of much higher quality
| than modern, paid-service mobile games.
|
| Here the ad support is clearly causal to the higher quality. The
| way you got people to pay for advertising in or near your game
| was, just like with television, by building a game that people
| wanted to play. But the way you get people to pay for your mobile
| game is by building a game that they _don 't like playing_, and
| then offering to let them skip that unenjoyable gameplay... for a
| fee.
|
| https://foxtrot.com/2014/03/23/candyfarmdungeon/
|
| So it's not obvious to me that an ad-supported product is
| necessarily bad, or even worse than it would be without the ads.
| planb wrote:
| I understand the message this tries to tell but this is not how
| it will look. This is how dying cash cows look. This isn't even
| dangerous, it's just ugly and wouldn't be used by many people.
|
| The real thing will look like ChatGPT. It will even answer WAY
| faster, because every microsecond means real money. The answers
| will sound real. They will even be useful. But maximally
| engaging. Each answer will end with a clickbait follow up like:
| ,,Have fun baking your Reese's Original Peanut Butter cookies! Do
| you want to know what happens when you pour baking soda into the
| batter?"
|
| I really hoped for that experience when clicking the headline.
| thethimble wrote:
| Or users will realize that a trashy ads experience is bad and
| switch to a service that isn't trashy.
|
| I don't understand why there's so much fearmongering about ads
| when heavy competition + zero switching costs will effectively
| guarantee good UX.
| michaelteter wrote:
| Sometimes the big trashy company buys the better rival, and
| then trashes it.
|
| Edit - just stumbled on this :)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Upf_B9RLQ
| nicce wrote:
| > Or users will realize that a trashy ads experience is bad
| and switch to a service that isn't trashy
|
| AI service can be so sophisticated that most will not notice
| the manipulation.
| lich_king wrote:
| Almost any online service has plenty of competition, but it
| doesn't prevent enshittification once one of them proves that
| you can squeeze more revenue out of users and get away with
| it. Netflix charges you the same as five years ago, but you
| now get ads. You pay for Amazon Prime and get ads. You pay
| for Spotify, but they now serve you AI music from fake bands
| to avoid paying royalties to humans. The end game is that all
| consumer LLMs have ads in the free / cheap tier.
|
| And as other folks are saying, the whole point is that it's a
| different type of an ad: it's not an annoying pop-up or an
| unskippable video. It's a subtle recommendation that you
| don't even notice. High conversion rates, little fatigue...
| getter than all the cool characters smoking in films a while
| back.
| theshackleford wrote:
| > I don't understand why there's so much fearmongering about
| ads when heavy competition + zero switching costs will
| effectively guarantee good UX.
|
| I mean literally every other technology sector has gone the
| other way, but i'm sure this one for _reasons_ will be
| completely different. I mean of course, it just makes sense.
| lich_king wrote:
| This looks like a vibe-coded promo for the service the parent
| is associated with, but what cracks me up is that not all this
| UI clutter is a part of the joke. For example, there are some
| incessant "chat with AI" bubbles that pop up in the bottom
| right corner that belong to the platform itself.
| boutell wrote:
| Ads might be financially viable for low quality AI. The cost of
| really good models is another thing entirely. There are people on
| Reddit asking when they will get ad supported Claude Code! The
| answer to that one is never.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Doing something badly in bad faith is easy, producing something
| good and interesting is hard (and also obviously outside the
| capabilities of most people).
|
| Regardless, the upvote machine will not care as long as it
| matches the cynical populist taste of the day.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| Why not make it real.
| Dwedit wrote:
| Will I need to drink a verification can to continue?
| btbuildem wrote:
| Quick question -- were you clever / ruthless enough to actually
| run real ads on this?
| scotty79 wrote:
| I think open weights models are what prevents this from already
| happening.
| butz wrote:
| I think you forgot to add a cookie banner. And I cannot find
| where to subscribe to newsletter. You still have some work to do
| ;)
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| It costs money to run AI models. The company serving you tokens
| has to make it up somehow.
|
| This demo however undersells the tactically insidious way ads
| could be run in an AI chat. All it would need to do is merely
| recommend a product at a slightly higher percentage. In fact the
| chat could be biased in imperceptible ways which drive the user's
| thinking, aims and behavior patterns towards an outcome which
| leads them to seeking out a specific brand, website, app, etc. In
| aggregate, the ads are served, just not without making it ever
| obvious.
|
| Even if there is "auditing" on the behavior of models, it is
| possible to train preferences into models without any of those
| preferences being specifically stated in the training data:
|
| https://alignment.anthropic.com/2025/subliminal-learning/
|
| And it seems that in very subtle ways, this holds true for humans
| too.
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6430776/
|
| > In 8 experiments on 5 prominent and diverse adversarial
| imagesets, human subjects correctly anticipated the machine's
| preferred label over relevant foils--even for images described as
| "totally unrecognizable to human eyes".
| adrianwaj wrote:
| It's a good stick, and the carrot could be having it all removed
| for a micropayment. Really, there should be a way to do that
| across a range of sites all at once.
|
| Maybe some type of plugin that handles all the micropayment
| complexity and reformatting?
|
| "Pay Once Read Anywhere" PORA vs
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_once,_run_anywhere (1995)
| protocolture wrote:
| Deliciously 2004
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