> if today you told me you had a website that was 100% technologically identical to Amazon, but you were willing to make slightly less money, you'd still have no products
It is widely understood that you really can't compete with "as good as". People won't leave Google, Facebook, etc. if you can only provide a service as good as, because the effort required to move would not be worth it.
> if you show me a product that works just as well as ChatGPT but costs less--or which costs the same but works a bit better--I would use it
This is why I believe LLMs will become a commodity product. The friction to leave one service is nowhere near as as great as leaving a social network. LLMs in their current state are very much interchangeable. OpenAI will need a technological breakthrough in reliability and/or cost to get people to realize that leaving OpenAI makes no sense.
> It is widely understood that you really can't compete with "as good as".
Sure you can, that's why there are hundreds if not thousands of brands of gas station. The companies you list are unusual exceptions, not the way things usually work.
Im not sure a gas station analogy really works. I use a gas station out of convenience (i.e. its on my route) and will only go out of my way for a significant difference in price. This means i go to the same gas stations even when there are others that are “as good as” around just because it’s convenient for me. Similarly if i already setup an account with Amazon and currently use Amazon i won’t move to an “as good as” competitor just because its an inconvenience to setup a new account, add billing info, add my address, etc… for no real improvement.
It is widely understood that you really can't compete with "as good as". People won't leave Google, Facebook, etc. if you can only provide a service as good as, because the effort required to move would not be worth it.
> if you show me a product that works just as well as ChatGPT but costs less--or which costs the same but works a bit better--I would use it
This is why I believe LLMs will become a commodity product. The friction to leave one service is nowhere near as as great as leaving a social network. LLMs in their current state are very much interchangeable. OpenAI will need a technological breakthrough in reliability and/or cost to get people to realize that leaving OpenAI makes no sense.