Comment by kergonath
3 days ago
Google was clearly superior fo a long time. They got close to 90% before enshitification started in earnest. We are not at that stage yet with AI chatbots.
Also, Google benefited from being the default on mainstream OSes. When people have to download an application, getting one or the other does not take more effort. Yes, OpenAI being tightly integrated within Windows, Android, and iOS would be a moat. That’s not the case and it is unlikely to happen. Google will go with their own and Apple won’t put itself in a situation where they are reliant on a single company, they got burned enough times.
We are at a point though where when average people think of "asking AI", they instinctively think of ChatGPT. That's a big thing.
All OpenAI has to do is not fall behind too much to the point where an alternative can generate enough hype to take the crown (see AltaVista and Google)
Exactly - it was better for a long time.
Also which search engine was the default was a massive factor - that's why Google paid for that.
If Google hadn't controlled Chrome, and or paid for defaults - they could have pretty much lost all their traffic overnight - ( if they weren't better ).