Comment by Esophagus4
3 days ago
You say 5% of users pay like it’s a shockingly bad number, but that’s almost exactly the same as YouTube’s paid subscribers (125m) vs MAUs (2.5b).
Like it or not, OpenAI is building a real business. It’s obviously capital intensive, but we will see how it goes.
And no, the vast majority will not migrate. Just like the vast majority didn’t migrate away from Google after they launched ads.
I don’t get the HN urge to be the contrarian saying “that’ll never work.”
OpenAI is sitting on top of a $100+ billion ad revenue business just waiting to happen. Those 95% of users not paying anything are about to start paying something.
They can't afford to wait.
OpenAI every day is closer and closer to collapse, they urgently need an IPO to pass the hot potato to someone else.
They have 35B USD in the bank.
They did 13B USD in revenue in 2025, and in 2026 they plan to spend 55B USD.
They are already dead if they don't find new people to lend them money.
One of the solution is to sell the company to fools (the general public / IPO), so founders and investors can get away with it and, buy a bit of runway for the company.