There is clearly a very strong moat. OpenAI is close to 1 billion active users on ChatGPT while Claude barely have any non-business users. Even though Anthropic had better models at different times this year, I never stopped using ChatGPT and paying for Plus.

We just don't know who will win in which area yet. It doesn't mean there is no moat.

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scoopertrooper 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don’t think it’s a question of moat. The usage limits on the chat interface with the more advanced Claud models are brutal. I feel like I can barely start a conversation before I get shutdown. However, I switched over to Gemini almost completely and barely ever checkin with ChatGPT these days.

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ashirviskas 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I did, moved off to Claude in 2024 and many others around me did the same. Do you have data for non-business claim besides anecdotal evidence?

	▲	aurareturn 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes. Claude has 1% based on this: https://gs.statcounter.com/ai-chatbot-market-share Consumers overwhelmingly use ChatGPT over Claude. ChatGPT dominance has not wavered.

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shaky-carrousel 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

OpenAI has close to 1 billion users which are mostly free users and will switch provider the moment OpenAI start charging them or adding ads. Which they will, as OpenAI themselves said they are losing money even with 200$ subs. So that amount of users is pretty meaningless.

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aurareturn 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Google search is free to use too. So is Instagram. Facebook. Whatsapp. All of these have ads.

OpenAI says they're very profitable on inference.

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KaiserPro 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> OpenAI says they're very profitable on inference.

Great, but they need to burn billions on advertising, freemeium, and mostly R&D for new models.

	▲	aurareturn 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		So do all their competitors.

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shaky-carrousel 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

All of these have ads. And none of these have an equal value alternative. OpenAI, Claude, Deepseek, Mistral, Gemini, are mostly the same to a regular user.

	▲	aurareturn an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Bing is mostly the same. Kagi is mostly the same. Yahoo, Yandex, etc. It's 2025. Hardly any difference. There were tens of search engines in the 90s and 2000s that were generally mostly the same. Yet, Google still won and owned nearly all search monetization. Search was even easier to switch. At least ChatGPT has memory. Most chat apps are the same as Whatsapp. All of them are free too.