It's really hard to be a generalist and better than all the specialists at everything. OpenAI wants to focus on the G in AGI, and optimizing for ecommerce is just not that interesting to them, so of course it can't compete with Walmart.
openai has.... I'm not sure but let's say 500m free users, and it's not unreasonable to assume they eventually hit 1b. That is a lot of advertising revenue, which is what powers companies like Google and even smaller companies with only 300m users like Twitter. If ecommerce isn't a major focus for OpenAI then their board members are asleep at the wheel.
"Someone can want a thing, even very badly, without wanting to put in the work for it."
Pretty much the impetus behind a lot of theft. Sure, there's thieving because people can't afford food, but that's all theft. There's theft because they are addicts and don't want to sober up long enough to earn money, so they still things. There's others that can't afford something so rather than saving for it, they just take it.
Is 'the work' not reflected in 'consequences' in terms of theft?
I'm not sure how to convey this idea properly...Can't you view the repercussions of theft (Legal action, distrust, etc) as 'work' being put in? Sure, it's a different kind of work, but while I have a lack of motivation to want to work to buy a Lambo as I find them not worth the value, I also have a lack of motivation to steal a Lambo as I find it not worth the consequences.
In normal society, people earn money within the legal confines of the society they are in. If you're a thief and trying to skirt that normal "earning of money", which is what normal people equate to "work", your work is scheming a plan to obtain the item without getting caught and possibly how to fence the item for money if you're not just using the item directly.
Equating "work" as the repercussions is looking at things in strange way. That's just punishment for "working" outside of the legal confines of society.
I understand what you are saying but nonetheless struggle to view the possibility of maybe getting caught and then maybe getting punished, as "work". It (the abstract concept of something possibly happening) fits into none of the definitions of "work" I have heard. Moreover, many crimes are committed without the perpetrator even thinking of the consequences.
Consider an alternative viewpoint: rather than contorting the definition of "work" in such a way and convincing everyone to accept the new definition, we might instead be content saying "someone can want a thing, even very badly, without wanting to put in the work for it."
Oh, I'm with you mate, I'm not trying to die on a hill over here re-defining 'work'.
I was just looking from a more esoteric view, "Do you count the risk of consequences as potential effort" I think is at least more proper phrasing.
Wanting and being interested are not things in physical reality. We are also talking about an organization and not some aspiring teenager.
If someone wants something , the only measure of their interest and desire is how much resources and time they allocate to it. We’re not measuring Sam Altmans deepest desires and fantasies here
wanting to be good at something is not exactly the same as being interested in getting good at something, which carries the additional, nuanced, connotation of investment (or willingness to invest) towards this goal.
e.g. many people want to live an active healthy lifestyle, but fewer are actually interested in doing so.
> wanting to be good at something is not exactly the same as being interested in getting good at something
Are you sure? I've never heard of that difference. To be sure, I checked the definitions for each, and could find no such distinction. Maybe you could provide me with better sources than the ones I found?
You can use an old version of Gnome and accept older software, or you can organize some fellow GNOME enthusiasts to maintain it, possibly with paid developers.
You can't legally get old versions of Windows or Photoshop, and you can't legally fix them if you find problems. GNOME gives you that freedom.
This isn't just a theoretical possibility: both MATE and Cinnamon are GNOME forks.
You can argue that maintaining and developing a desktop environment is an huge project and you can't expect someone to take that on - I completely agree, which is why I think we should be thankful of the developers instead of complaining about being "forced" to use new versions of their software.
Having technical discussions about the merits is fine, but in the end in the free/open source software model the people that make the technical decisions are the ones that make the technology possible. And if so many of those people are moving to Wayland, maybe there is a reason for that.
Technically you can get second-hand keys, but good luck verifying that it's actually a legal resale. Also good luck getting the latest, most up to date version of Vista.
You still aren't allowed to start a group to collectively patch bugs in the old version.
Because this shortage isn't natural, it's the result of OpenAI flexing monopsony power to deprive everyone else for its strategic gain. Unlike an organic shortage, there is no compelling reason for otherwise excess capacity to be built, since this artificial shortage can end as arbitrarily as it started.
The datacenters are still going to be built, and their usage won't suddenly fall just because the companies behind some of the products on them suddenly lose value. The demand is not tied to their profits, so I find it unlikely for the shortage to just end.
These data center projects are losing hundreds of billions of dollars which they don't have, and some evidence is starring to come out they're just money laundering schemes to get money from the government to contractors. I wouldn't bet on them all being built.
There far too many railways, amusement parks, housing developments and other bubble ventures that were either never even completed after wasting a lot of money or went bust soon after opening.
No reason the same can't happen now - especially for something as expensive and faily easily re-sellable as a datacenter & the hardware insite. Just rip it all out and sell it for parts where they are actually needed.
The data centers have already been financed, they’re not going to stop halfway through because they’ve run out of money. Whether or not they’ll make money on completion is a different story, but that’s 2-3 years away at least. Then you might see RAM prices drop, but not before.
> Be honest, who had "Sam Altman kills Apple Computer" on their 2025/6 Bingo card?
Not the person Sam Altman specifically, but AI in general. It was obvious even in 2024 that braindead beancounters were jumping on the hype train, so much so that coal power plants were kept alive to satiate the power hunger [1]. The last time that shit happened, it was the coin craze [2], but unlike cryptocurrencies there was and is an actual product being made...
> Well, actually, there is one other important reason for this article’s existence I'll tack onto the end – a hope that other people start digging into what’s going on at OpenAI. I mean seriously – do we even have a single reliable audit of their financials to back up them outrageously spending this much money…for this? Heck, I’ve even heard from numerous sources that OpenAI is “buying up the manufacturing equipment as well” – and without mountains of concrete proof, and/or more input from additional sources on what that really means…I don’t feel I can touch that hot potato without getting burned…but I hope someone else will…
And I'd say if it ends up being shown there even is the slightest hint of impropriety going on, trial him. Up to and including capital punishment for the entire board and C level - what OpenAI already has done, even if legally on paper, IMHO is the biggest market manipulation in history, and it's not just one competitor that is suffering but society as a whole.
I don't have an issue with big companies and their super rich investors engaging in petty bitch fights. By all means, hand me some popcorn and soda. But the RAM situation, with everyone not being super rich and flush with cash from AI crazed investors being screwed royally? That is far beyond acceptable.
We need to send a message: you can't mess around with the world economy at that level without feeling serious repercussions. The lives of the billions are not playthings for the select few.
And if it turns out to be outright market manipulation, engaging in deals he doesn't even have the money committed for by others, much less actually have it on his balance sheet? Then it's time for the pitchforks, not even Madoff was this ruthless.
Holy shit, I had no idea openai ahd such immense international power over manufacturers in independent foreign countries that they can tie the hands of ram companies and forcibly prevent them from making more ram.
I think you may have fundamentally misunderstood what a technocracy is: it has nothing to do with tech companies whatsoever. From literally the article that you have linked:
> The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy.
I would absolutely love for this proposed blocker to happen, but I have zero faith in it actually happening given the user-centred nature of this feature and the user-hostile origin of Mozilla's funding situation…
It's also pretty challenging since they're not OS-level windows any more.
It's the same problem as video ad blockers and YouTube: the ads/sponsorships have just become embedded in the main stream so they're much more difficult to obviously delineate from the actual video.
SponsorBlock is available on just about every type of device these days -- works perfectly on Android with YouTube ReVanced. The options on iOS are naturally a bit more limited, but apparently it's possible on a jailbroken device (or through some other slightly-janky methods on non-jailbroken devices): https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock/wiki/iOS
It works on Firefox on Android as well, as do many other FF extensions. It won't work on a fruit phone [1], the Firefox version you can get there is lobotomised because the fruit factory is afraid a full-feature browser not under their control will eat into their app store margins.
Yeah I hope Mozilla will make a full version for the EU which is possible now. But Apple is making it as hard as possible for them, there was an article about that only recently.
Although to be fair YouTube itself has started to defeat those - they put a little white dot in the timeline when the ad finishes.
I'm not sure how they do it but I think AI could pretty easily detect current ad transitions. Especially when combined with data about which bits of the video most people skip.
I think it'll lead to sponsorships being much more integrated into videos rather than a sponsorship segment. Or possibly people will switch to much shorter segments like LTT does.
I never really understood why they want long segments anyway. Shorter ones mean I'm much more likely to actually see it.
Really, YouTube should just auto skip sponsor segments for premium users. As it is Premium isn't worth it. Because you still get bombarded with ads despite paying to stop them.
Of course it will hurt the content creators but they are already getting paid much more per view by premium customers! So showing sponsor segments as well is double dipping.
Yeah I agree, but it's understandable that YouTube are treading lightly here. It's really in their interests to auto-skip sponsor segments full stop, but that wouldn't go down well with content creators!
Yeah definitely. YouTube doesn't get a cut from sponsor segments. They would much rather that the only way to make money for creators was through them.
I would not be entirely surprised if in future they launch an "official" sponsorship system where the sponsored section appears like an ad (you can't skip it without adblock/premium), they take a cut and require all videos to use it.
I bet the only reason they haven't (other than the open revolt it would cause) is that it would just push creators to blend their sponsorship into the entire video instead of having a nicely separated segment that you can easily skip.
Another thing about the current sponsor fragments is that it obviously prompts a lot of people to install sponsorblock and that will kinda make them think: "why not go the whole way and just block ads altogether?". I do think more people would subscribe if sponsors would be blocked on premium.
Also this effect would be beneficial for both YT itself and the creators, they don't get paid anything for views from adblockers.
It would be great to see less sponsors too because there's too many youtubers selling their soul. Like LTT with their Honey app promotion, knowingly promoting malware. Or all the glossy reviewers that really are not all that impartial.
> it obviously prompts a lot of people to install sponsorblock
I would be very surprised if more than 1% of YouTube viewers use sponsorblock.
> I do think more people would subscribe if sponsors would be blocked on premium.
Definitely agree there!
> It would be great to see less sponsors
You wouldn't see that though. It's pretty clear sponsors pay waaay more than advertising. Creators would just integrate them more into the video so there's nothing to skip. Like instead of "this segue to our sponsor ComfyPants", it would be that their username in the game review is ComfyPants, and they get a skin only wearing pants, and they do the review wearing ComfyPants... you get the idea. Much worse.
I doubt sponsors pay more than advertising. After all it is advertising.
And what you describe is hidden advertising. It can also be forbidden. In many countries in Europe it is on public TV, and they have to avoid naming brands, if they show any the label has to be taped off etc.
every one of these things that make the deal "good" for OpenAI is a direct result of negative externalities for everyone else: competitors, consumers, and people who wouldn't care otherwise.
The article even says that they don't have an obvious plan for how to use the wafers they bought, and very clearly suggests that this is purely an anticompetitive tactic to force everyone else to eat a price increase that OpenAI doesn't need to face. It's clever though because if any regulatory agency starts asking questions (not that they would do that in the current USA political climate) then OpenAI can just say it's a strategic reserve, we have plans to do something with it, etc. etc. What are you going to do? Take them to court and force them to auction off some % of the stock? Set an industry-wide limit on wafer inventory? Fine them? You'd need to find some evidence that it was done maliciously, and good luck with that.
There are some negative elements of captialism that we might simply have no reasonable regulatory apparatus to deal with. Preventing indivduals and companies from having so much market power in the first place seems to be the only thing that can work consistently.
Indeed, I find it very hard to take the article seriously given that every one of the notionally decentralised trends it's described has propagated on a very small handful of highly centralised platforms. For that matter, it's very difficult for me to imagine how these trends might have spread in the first place without access to large-audience virality directed by algorithmic recommendations precisely enabled by such severe centralisation.
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