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points by deadbabe 4 days ago | 0 comments

People think OpenAI and Anthropic are just these wildly unprofitable companies with no future or business.

They know what they’re doing. The naysayers are like the people that said this little internet thing wasn’t going anywhere.

[–] Loocid 4 days ago

>They know what they’re doing. The naysayers are like the people that said this little internet thing wasn’t going anywhere.

There's a big difference between people saying OpenAI/Antropic wont survive and LLMs wont survive. A lot of big early players in the internet space died off as well.

[–] lhd1 4 days ago

Whether you think they have a future or not does not change fact that they currently are wildly unprofitable.

>internet thing wasn’t going anywhere.

This is conflating the utility of the technology with the economics behind it. Few people claim LLMs are useless. It's a question of figuring out a viable business model.

[–] wswx 4 days ago

correct.

Commercial airlines are of great value to our lives. Who's questioning or denying that?

Horrible business to be in though.

[–] tonyhart7 4 days ago

Yeah, I think AI model provider would goes the same way commercial airlines does

the money is infrastructure (hardwares, electrics, data etc)

[–] kingleopold 4 days ago

they are not horrible business, some of them literally get invested by governments and get extra debt from them too so they can never go bankrupt? if they are at national level airlines, they survive no matter what.

that is not bad business? that is just private profits, socialize loses perfect business?

[–] eeedda 4 days ago

A good business is measured by the returns it generates.

They do not generate economic profits.

[–] Danox 3 days ago

And isn't profitable without government subsidy around the world.

[–] shooly 4 days ago

It sounds like you're just a "yessayer", though? Not much different from naysayers, just on the opposite side.

One thing that naysayers have going on for them is the fact that those companies indeed aren't making profit right now.

[–] deadbabe 4 days ago

People get obsessed with wanting companies to profit ASAP.

That's not how you grab market share. Early on, any profit you aren't reinvesting into the business is basically hurting your growth rate.

[–] InsideOutSanta 4 days ago

What value has market share if switching costs are close to zero, and alternatives continue to be available?

Grabbing market share by making losses only helps if it actually wins you a genuine monopolistic market position.

[–] rico735 4 days ago

Might want to Google Global Crossing. The internet survived, but most giant companies did not.

[–] umutsevdi 4 days ago

The Internet was profitable, but I'm not connecting to this website from my Solaris Sun Microsystems machine using Netscape Navigator

[–] dizhn 3 days ago

Smaller labs and open models have shown that their lunch is pretty easy to eat. There's no "moat" as they like to say in business circles.

I personally think LLMs will be a utility business in the future. Cheap, unlimited and with ads. Lots and lots of ads.

[–] root_axis 4 days ago

> The naysayers are like the people that said this little internet thing wasn’t going anywhere.

The same rhetorical tactic was used to diminish blockchain critics.

[–] vitaflo 4 days ago

Or OpenAI and Anthropic are AOL and Yahoo.

[–] Danox 3 days ago

Yes the second line/generation will profit more.

[–] wswx 4 days ago

So did the bankers in 2008.

Crazy how delusional people are.

They are in too deep - they have to believe it all works out and act accordingly. lmao.