If people pay for inference, that's revenue. Ads and stuff is plan B for inference being too cheap, or the value being too low.

If there's no monetization, the industry will just collapse, except for Google, which is probably what they want.

The Chinese AI industry won't collapse, because it's a strategic priority for the PRC, and heavily subsidized.

up to the point the Ai industry and people's access to it threatens The Party

> the industry will just collapse

Wait, so all of that talk of ushering an era of innovation and new opportunities was just a lie, and the thing needs dinosaur-era stuff like ads and online shopping to survive?

Seems disingenuous.

Ads have a very high profit margin. Ultimately we all get to cool shit because some consumer somehwere is buying something. Depending on whether you work in B2B or consumer software you are just a step closer or farther from the consumer. But ultimately its people who dont write code who decide the fate of the software industry.

> Ads have a very high profit margin.

I don't get it.

"AI is the new electricity", right? Disruptive. A new era.

The lightbulb company should be so disruptive that it completely occludes the huge profits of the old and obsolete candle business.

If your electricity company starts selling candles, something is wrong at a very deep conceptual level.