"Have you used ChatGPT?"

No

Large number of upvotes on the quoted comment however. Maybe some of those voters are ChatGPT users

I do searching from the command line in text mode. The script I use keeps a "log" (a customised SERP) of all query strings and search result URLs. I also have these URLs stored in the logs from the forward proxy. These are compressed using RePair. I can search the compressed logs faster this way than with something like

    ztsd -dc log.zst|grep pattern

    rg -z pattern log.zst

> No

Given that, I'd suggest not offering "alternatives" to the features described in TFA for a service you've never used. There are people here talking about oranges, a lot of them with domain expertise, and you're not just talking about apples, you're talking about bird migrations.

> Large number of upvotes on the quoted comment however.

Sure, and also downvotes - that measures factionalism, not correctness.

But tech wise, you're confused. Functionally speaking chatgpt is a shared document editor - the server needs to store chat histories for the same reason Google Docs stores the content of documents. Users can submit text to chatgpt.com from one browser, and later edit that text from the app or a different browser. Ergo the text is stored on the server, simple as that.

Downvotes is a tiny faction

3 versus 190+, so far

Many commenters cannot distinguish rhetorical questions from questions that seek an answer

By attempting to answer a rhetorical question one may only strengthen the point being made by the question, for example, poor decision-making, and may reveal an absence self-awareness