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Posted by shantnutiwari 1 day ago

Tell HN: OpenAI has started putting ads on paid programs

I was on the £6.99/month program-- mainly because I didnt use it much. Last few days I've started seeing ads:

1. Ad for Financial Times 2. Add for Shein 3. Add for Amazon prime day

All 3 were on a chat where I was asking about tips on a mobile game.

Needless to say, I cancelled my plan. Im not paying money to see ads

112 points | 63 commentspage 2
b3ing 21 hours ago|
I knew this would happen, the future of AI, is ads, lots of them. This isn’t the end, there will be more added on soon
stranded22 1 day ago||
They have been putting ads in the free and ‘go’ plans
elashri 1 day ago||
Are the ads static or appear in a way that would make them recognized easily so that a uBlock Origin rules remove them?
throwatdem12311 1 day ago|
Ublock Origin blocks them, at least on Firefox. I haven’t tested UBo Lite on Chromium browsers.
shantnutiwari 6 hours ago||
I use the app, so ad blocker doesnt work there. the app had uses, like its dictation was good
throwatdem12311 1 day ago||
This has been known to be rolling out for a long time.

Netflix and Disney opened this box long ago when they introduced their “cheap with ads” plan and it’s their most popular subscription types.

The invisible hand of the market has spoken and people prefer advertisements over paying more.

Sad reality but unless we change the incentives this is going to happen with everything.

bflesch 1 day ago||
How relevant were the ads? Were they integrated into the chat or shown as a box next to the conversation? How did they manage to add the topics to a conversation about mobile games?
shantnutiwari 6 hours ago|
Zero relevance. I mean, Stardew Valley has nothing to do with Financial Times or buying clothes from Shein ;)
bflesch 6 hours ago||
I was wondering how they made the leap between these topics :P

So basically it stood out like a sore thumb and was a random, disconnected sentence with a link inbetween the output you have actually asked for?

shantnutiwari 2 hours ago||
no it was quite random.

"Which crop is most profitable in summer?"

==> Ad for FT

It seems random. But maybe because they are still trying it out

okzgn 23 hours ago||
That's a way to reduce lost income from former clients.
jamesli233 9 hours ago||
It can be understood that the era of llm is merely an inheritor of the Internet. OpenAI is just another company that hasn't reached the same scale as Meta.
zb3 1 day ago||
> Ad for Financial Times

Pay to see ads of products where you also pay to see ads :)

6stringmerc 23 hours ago||
What are these “adds” you are seeing? Are they “ads” as in the contraction slang form of “advertisements” akin to the British “adverts” or are you making a meta commentary on the “addition” of content to you Clanker experience?

I’m not genuinely confused tbh. I’m more nothing this as a case study of the “LLM user profile” anecdata I’m collecting. Some may call it lowbrow to harp on failing basic literacy yet being compelled to pay real money for a chatbox to help with mental efforts, but here we are.

christkv 1 day ago|
The most generic ad inventory. Personalized or content relevant ads is still fantasy I see
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