Remix.run Logo
Remix clone Hacker News
new | show | ask | jobsGithub
▲ mbb70 4 hours ago

Ads are a ratchet that only tighten in one direction. Once the paychecks of 1000s of motivated, intelligent OpenAI employees depend on ad revenue increasing, the only option is to make them more invasive, more prevalent, more annoying, more data hungry etc.

▲jsheard 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You only have to look at Google Search to see how this plays out. Their ads were also clearly separated and distinguished from the organic content, until they weren't.

▲xd1936 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

https://searchengineland.com/search-ad-labeling-history-goog...

▲echelon 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It ought to be illegal to buy ads against trademarks (+/- some reasonable edit distance).

Long ago, Google search used to be its own product. Now it's the URL bar for 91% of internet users. This is no longer fair.

Google gets to not only tax every brand, but turn every brand into a biding war.

International laws need to be written against this.

Searching for "Claude" brings up a ton of competition in the first spot, and Google gets to fleece Anthropic and OpenAI, yet get its own products featured for free.

Searching "{trademark} vs" (or similar) should be the only way to trigger ads against a trademark.

▲Marsymars 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It ought to be illegal to buy ads against trademarks (+/- some reasonable edit distance).

I get the intention here, but how do you limit the collateral damage? (Or do you not care about it / see reducing the ability to advertise as a positive?)

There are a lot of trademarks, and they have to be scoped to specific goods and services, but Google has no way of knowing if you're actually looking for something related to that trademark.

e.g. doing a quick trademark search, I see active, registered trademarks for "elevator", "tower", "collision", "cancer sucks", "steve's", "local", "best", "bus", "eco", "panel", "motherboard", "grass", etc. etc. I'm not familiar with any of those brands, but that's just a small sample of the fairly generic terms that would no longer be able to be advertised on.

▲adastra22 an hour ago | parent [-]

There should be no ads on the internet.

▲Marsymars 24 minutes ago | parent [-]

Yeah, and like, I commiserate with that view, I think it would make the internet/world a better place, but I don't think "no ads for trademarks" is helpful way to reach for that goal.

▲KellyCriterion an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It ought to be illegal to buy ads against trademark

this was one of the biggest problems of AdWords from beginning on: You could do brand-bidding unlimited, even today you see it every day: Search for brand X and competitor Y will show up with same words

▲nitwit005 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree it's a bit perverse, but the problem predates Google. People do the real world equivalent all the time. When there are big conferences for specific companies, rivals buy up local ad space on billboards and subways.

That has caused some companies hosting conferences to pay for some of those ad spaces in advance.

▲Marsymars 3 minutes ago | parent [-]

Ads on billboards and subways actually bother me far more than search ads.

It's visual and cognitive pollution on public space that I've never consented to - I find it viscerally offensive.

We don't accept billboards on hiking trails, or in elementary classrooms, or in courtrooms (as far as I'm aware, though I wouldn't be surprised if someone turns up a real-life grotesque examples) - we shouldn't accept them in other public spaces either.

▲stevage 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't agree. If I search for "leatherman" it seems totally reasonable to give competitors a chance. I generally think brand recognition is too powerful. If there is another high quality multitool on the market for a better price, why shouldn't I know about it?

▲Marsymars 8 minutes ago | parent [-]

Disclaimer: See my sibling comments for some my general thoughts on the problems with banning trademark ads.

But for your specific example - I get where you're coming from, but I'm skeptical that the ad market is even that functional.

Firstly, if I google "leatherman", every sponsored result for Leatherman brand multitools anyway. (And no amount of refreshes or re-searches gives me anything other than Leathermans.)

Secondarily, I'm not convinced that the set of advertisers (not counting Leatherman itself) that will advertise for "leatherman" are actually on average a better products for the consumer. (e.g. as opposed to lower-quality, higher-priced knockoffs.)

▲malux85 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And now it's become an anti-signal. If I search for a hotel the top N results are for other hotels, and then results for travel agents, and buried somewhere in this sea of uselessness is the result I searched for. The managers at Google have become self interested promotion hunters, and the programmers weak sycophants. It wasn't like this in the early days when I was there, the best ideas won, but then the B player managers were hired and the rot started.

▲lanstin 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It isn't the managers it is the business. All those geniuses hired and over years and years no one came up with another business model but ads. I pay for ad-free YouTube and would happily pay for ad free search. As would many. Many people would like a google scale micropayments system that isn't ads. The failure to do this led directly to social media becoming customer devouring experiences rather than making good products people want.

▲yifanl 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Paradoxically, the people who pay for adfree experiences would be the most valuable targets for ads, so I suspect any pay for no ads arrangement will be temporary at best.

▲ 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]
[deleted]
▲ 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
▲FireBeyond 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Exactly. Next up, it'll be on the Plus tier to "help subsidize the low price of this tier".

▲shinryuu 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Check out kagi; adfree search

▲stevage 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I refuse to pay for ad free YouTube + otherwise I'd watch even more of it. The annoyingness of ads is a pretty important brake.

▲s1mplicissimus 2 hours ago | parent [-]

There's other options to break this kind of cognitive pattern, like https://unhook.app/

If I want them, I can use them. No need to justify ads for this use case.

▲stevage 42 minutes ago | parent [-]

That doesn't work on the TV. It also apparently requires using a specific browser (Kiwi) to work on mobile.

But thanks, still useful on desktop.

▲newswasboring 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> All those geniuses hired and over years and years no one came up with another business model but ads

This isn't true, there were many other ideas. It's just that only KPI was how much money they can make, thus ads won. Companies don't have an axis of ethics or morality.

▲lanstin an hour ago | parent [-]

Ideas don't count - it's persuasion and execution that matter. One of the several reasons that the rule is not ruled by smartness/rationality.

▲dingnuts 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

▲pton_xd 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> If I search for a hotel the top N results are for other hotels, and then results for travel agents, and buried somewhere in this sea of uselessness is the result I searched for.

The other day I had a DMV appointment scheduled on my Google Calendar with the office address saved in the location field. I opened the event and clicked on the address to navigate there.

I didn't realize initially but the first few Google Maps results were ads! When clicking on an exact address link!! I almost ended up at some apartment complex 2 miles away. Absolutely bewildering.

▲Applejinx 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Never thought I would go to DuckDuckGo for searching, ever. I'd do Kagi but I don't like their use of Yandex so I'll keep an eye on whether they figure their stuff out politically. I'd pay for search but not if it's paying Russia, I've been very unhappy with what Russia does with money in recent decades.

▲mentalgear 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Been using DuckDuckGo for almost 2 years now - couldn't believe it at first, but results are at least as good, if not even better than Google.

▲stevage 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I used Kagi for a year or two then switched to DDG. It's fine. I do not miss Google at all.

▲jpalomaki an hour ago | parent [-]

Kagi is using Google search behind the scenes. I think that’s why it felt so easy to switch to.

▲riku_iki 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The managers at Google have become self interested promotion hunters, and the programmers weak sycophants. It wasn't like this in the early days when I was there, the best ideas won, but then the B player managers were hired and the rot started.

I bet they run some metrics, and while hyper-intelligent persons like you are annoyed, there is a chance that avg joes representing 95% of revenue are fine with that.

▲sdf2erf 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In the early days they werent a publicy traded company and Brin/Page did not get exposed to the taste of being ultra-wealthy.

Steve Jobs looking back now is incredibly rare - someone who was wealthy but had the spirit of innovation to keep going again and again.

▲chairmansteve 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When it comes to anything tech related, the HN crowd are trend setters.

And.... the world is crying out for a google alternative. If it ever appears, the tech savvy people will be the first to move, followed by everyone else.

▲riku_iki 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Kagi is waiting for your money

▲Brystephor 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As someone who has worked in an ad domain, 100% agree. Ads are like a dangling carrot. There's always a way to get ad gains by blending them with organic content. What starts off as cleanly separated incrementally evolves into being indistinguishable from the original product offering.

▲amelius 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The ratchet can loosen! It should be easy to detect what is an ad and thus block it (or overlay some artwork over it or just blank it out).

Use ChatGPT for getting answers, and use Claude for detecting the ads in ChatGPT, or vice versa!

▲m463 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> more invasive

I think invasive might be close to the right word, but in a different context. Not invasive to the content, but invasive to your psyche. AI + personalization goes past dystopian into terrifiying.

▲ 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

▲badsectoracula 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The competitor also having ads.

I know Anthropic made these ads about not having ads but Apple also made ads about thinking different, yet once they became successful they ended up thinking the same as every other business.

And once upon a time, Google did not do evil.

▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent [-]

just go to openrouter and there are openweight models hosted by independent providers. why would all of them choose ads?

▲Someone1234 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Then OpenRouter has ads, and the models hosted by third-parties have an ad/ad-free tier (heck, even ads injected into the query response stream).

▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent [-]

this is motivated reasoning. the models are openweight and anyone can host them. why would every hosting company use ads? lets be a bit sensible.

▲jon-wood 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Are you (and the other’s going all Pikachu face here) really that naive? Have you looked around lately? News is a race to the bottom for clicks and ad revenue, photo sharing sites are turning people into extremists because it results in more ad revenue than just showing your friend’s holiday photos, and search engines prefer giving malware laden installers over the legit version of open source software.

So yeah, the assumption unless shown otherwise is that things will get worse, and the user is just there to be sold whatever shit is paying most.

▲atherton94027 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I mean your argument is basically saying "in the future Linux will have ads, there's a race to the bottom with operating systems, just look at windows". Tough to justify this train of thought with open weight models

▲tomrod 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It almost did. Look at Ubuntu and Amazon.

▲gloxkiqcza 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That stands today. In the future the SOTA might move to where models of today are no longer competitive and there no open-weight alternatives available anymore. Let’s hope it’s not the case.

▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent [-]

even if that were to happen, its still a better situation than now.

▲draxil 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We've seen this process before. If you don't pay, you are the product.

▲Someone1234 4 hours ago | parent [-]

But people ARE paying and still getting ads in this move.

Their Go plan, which is paid, is getting ads.

▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent [-]

There exists no (or very few) subscription service that has no tier without advertisements. You are panicking for no reason.

Netflix?

Hulu?

Youtube?

Spotify?

Adobe?

Duolingo?

X?

▲SirFatty 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Then everything is ok since everyone's doing it!

▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent [-]

you didn't get my point - no one is doing it and there's a reason why.,

▲pigpag 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is simply not (always) true. Spotify injects ads for Podcasts even for paying users. YouTube has tons of videos with adds built-in by content creators.

▲Someone1234 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yep, and a lot of the streaming services listed also inject ads for their own shows into the "ad-free" tier's content (before it begins). Plus ads on the home-page.

▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

this is an incorrect analogy - the platform is not showing ads but rather the creators themselves.

▲Marsymars 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I dunno, I think it's clearly different if Spotify is using their platform to inject the ads vs the creators creating the content with ads included.

Like if Netflix let showrunners inject ads into their shows and provided a technical platform for that, and the Stranger Things creators added ads to every episode... nobody would be like "it's not Netflix showing ads, it's the Stranger Things creators".

▲ 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
▲tempest_ 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Once one competitor sees the ratchet turn they will follow suit.

▲marginalia_nu 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah, once competitors investors see OpenAI making a profit, and competitors not, they ask why.

▲baggachipz 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> OpenAI making a profit

I don't think anyone has to worry about that.

▲marginalia_nu 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Don't underestimate just how much money you can make off funneling visitors to ads at scale. It's basically Google's entire business model.

If OpenAI plays their cards right, they can definitely end up in a similar position. Yeah a lot of programmers would probably pony up for Claude, but every lazy high schooler in the world would gladly hear about Raid: Shadow Legends to have ChatGPT do their homework for them.

Don't get me wrong it's definitely sucks, but man is it ever a profitable way to suck.

▲baggachipz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

This assumes that ads at google's or facebook's level would get them anywhere close to profitability. OpenAI's costs of doing business are only accelerating, all while burn rate continues to get worse. I have no doubt that selling ads will bring in a lot of revenue, but it'll be dwarfed by the numbers OpenAI needs to stop hemorrhaging cash every quarter. The great irony is that the more success OpenAI has in gaining users, the more money they lose at an ever-increasing rate. Lose on every sale, and make up for it in volume!

▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

this won't work because there are way too many open weight alternatives that are run independently - just go to openrouter.

▲cced 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Competitors use ads?

▲tommica 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm "excited" for the era of different locally run LLMs get to have ads baked into them... People start selling ad-space to inject into their training/tuning data. Could be quite lucrative.

▲runjake 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not yet. But they likely will, if OpenAI's ad revenue becomes worthwhile.

▲tyre 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Or they view it as a differentiator and focus on a different segment. As I understand it, this is what Anthropic is doing:

1. Focus on businesses and developers

2. Make money on productivity and API platform

Enterprises are particularly sensitive about their data being farmed (e.g. note that paid Google accounts don’t have their emails used for ads.)

Keeping that trust is not a differentiator and existentially important to Anthropic.

▲runjake 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I just don't believe that is likely.

I think that, despite Anthropic's present statements, they will move to ads if ads prove successful for ChatGPT or Gemini.

It would be viewed as "leaving money on the table" by their board and shareholders if they didn't.

▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

this is false and not how things work at the enterprise level. trust is important and it is not lost by showing ads in free tier.

trust is lost in other ways.

▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

no they don't

▲eknkc 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They will or they will perform worse. OpenAI will be able to offer a better `free tier` as it won't be free after all.

▲Someone1234 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not yet, but they all will. OpenAI has shown that customers will accept it.

▲simianwords 4 hours ago | parent [-]

name a single product that has

1. many competitors

2. ways to pay for the subscription but no tier exists to remove ads

i can't even think of one.

▲vntok an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Ever heard of a thing called television?

▲ 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
▲ 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]