Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic are all raking it in by selling subscriptions to mostly business customers, who are gorging themselves on those subscriptions. Microsoft in particular is reporting enormous profits, driven in large part by AI adoption by its customers.

Google is the only big AI provider that is cannibalizing its main revenue stream by offering AI search summaries. It is uniquely in a difficult position, between a rock and a hard place.

I think the opposite. Google's AI search uniquely cannibalizes its main revenue source: search ads. No other major AI provider, relies so heavily on advertising for its revenue. Instead, each of them (Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic) are in the business of selling subscriptions to their more powerful or more specialized tools. Their AIs don't cannibalize their other revenue streams like Google's.

It doesn't matter what technology is king, commercialization will gravitate to it.

AI search goes WAY beyond the first two results. And it doesn't just default to whatever it finds on Reddit. I've found that it often scours dozens of search results to put results together. It's way faster than clicking through all those pages of search results, and better yet, AI automatically throws out the unrelated search results that always sneak in there.

They could, but then people would just use ChatGPT instead.

I don't do either one. I just ask Clade Code to write the API code for me. It gets it right the first time, most of the time. You can have your documentation!

I know of no one who uttered the word that "capitalism is the root of all problems"

However, is that an actual point making the many posts speaking of end stage capitalism, or is from OP "With capitalism we are rushing off the side of a cliff."

not If you demand specific wording, no - I saw no such exact wording. But unless you are new here, there is a lot of hate heaped on "capitalism" Especially towards one particular country where there is a narrative that said country is run by capitalism. It isn't

Well, let's look at the country in question. Here in the USA we are not living under capitalism. We have a combination of corporatism, with a lot of socialism effects tossed in.

There are many benefits for people of low economic means. Free phones, free laptops, Heating oil assistance, low cost internet, section 8 housing (if you are not an American, Section 8 is a program where a low income person pays a small amount, perhaps a couple hundred dollars a month for their apartment and the Government picks up the rest) WIC- Women, Infants, & Children program giving free food. Medicaid for children and many adults. Medicare, Social Security disabled benefits for adults, and children, even Social Security benefits for children of older parents. We have food Stamp programs, we have free transportation for poor and retired people, including personal pickup and delivery for people living in areas not served by regular public transportation.

This does not sound to me like Capitalism in any shape or form.

These are things that don't get mentioned much. At one point in the past, I provided cites and links to all of this. It varies by state, but even deep red states have these programs.

You tell me. Should there be a maximum allowable salary? How do we make a completely level playing field? Force the driven not to work?

I have to note, I was born in poverty, and worked myself up to around top 10 percent. Zero help. Put myself through college, built a salable skillset. Doing 6 figures in retirement. So I'm probably in the group who need penalized for success.

So how do we deal with the driven vs the non-driven? How do we deal with those who build something? I built my money through frugal living and saving while young and then at around 50, really hit my stride. Waited until interest rates were down, then bought a house that's below what I was approved for, and paid it off in less than 15 years. Kept saving and investing. Don't want to turn this into Ol's financial classes though.

And I'm astute enough to know that not everyone is going to do that. But in the modern parlance, I am the bad person, and they must have the same economic resources as I do. So yes, I've been told I was part of the problem.

Now I might not be the brightest person in the room, but my experience has been that while some are whining about how bad it is that only some people have money, that the proper gestalt is a level playing field, I would propose that it really isn't possible to make that level playing field. Mainly because of different abilities and individual drives.

What do we do with the "obscene" rich, and the poor that are not driven or mentally capable on the other end. I've personally shown that with drive, a very poor person can work their way up that ladder. Takes hard work and financial smarts. No, not everyone has that combo. And here in the land people love to hate we have a way to help the people that might be stuck on the lower end of the economic scale, and don't really care about rising any further. I support such a system.

Now your solution for a level playing field?

Anthropic is simply really, really good at producing these little gems. They've learned the art of getting free advertising. Google hasn't done quite so well with Google Meet. Maybe they should take a cue from Anthropic, and release a statement to the press talking about how dangerous Google Meet is.

Everybody has their own preferences, and that's why there are so many form factors of Windows computers. Manufacturers are all competing to produce what people want, and experiment in all kinds of ways. Not all the ideas work, but some of them do. The eraser head mouse is a bust IMO, I hate it. But the 2-in-1 convertible laptop is a winner for me. With Apple, you get what *they* want to give you.

And nobody under 50 has everb heard of either EMACS or vi!

I'm 60, and I love my touch screen laptop. I'm sprawled on a couch right now, not sitting properly at my desk. The touch screen is easier to navigate and click when you're not wanting to be at your desk.

Yes, I like a touch screen on a notebook, enough that I won't buy one without the feature. And judging by the marketplace, there are lots of others like me.

The touchpad works OK, but usually requires more intricate gestures. For example, to scroll with a touch pad, you have to use two fingers and keep them spaced equally as you move them. On a touch screen, just swipe. Or if you want to click on something, with a touchpad you have to "drive" the mouse to the coordinates where you want to click, then tap. On a touch screen you just tap where you want to click, no driving the mouse pointer around the screen.

Yes, it's a preference thing. Some people have no use for touch screens. I do.

(Replying from my touch-screen Windows laptop...)

A touchpad on a laptop is *not* a better input device than a touch screen. With a touch screen, I can directly touch the "Reply to this" link in this thread, to "click" it. With a touchpad, I have to "drive" the mouse to that location and then tap. A touchpad is only intuitive because we're used to them, not because they're better than a touch screen.

Also, to scroll, I can simply swipe my figure up or down, dragging the content with it. With a touchpad, I have to use two fingers, and be careful to hold the two fingers in the same position relative to each other, or risk the computer interpreting my gesture as zoom-in or zoom-out.

Touch pads have their place, I do use mine. But I never want a laptop that is not a touchscreen.

Well, to clarify, since we're. worried about communism versus capitalism, the US is in no way shape or form capitalism. It is a mixture of corporatism and (cover the kid's ears folks!!) socialism. Don't believe it? Tax dollars, quite a few of them in fact, go to things like free laptops and smartphones for the low income, subsidized fuel oil, medicare, medicaid, free food for Women, Infants and Children as well as Food stamps, Section 8 housing, where low income people pay a very small amount per month, while the Government pays the rest. When you are in a 2000 dollar apartment and paying 200 dollars a month, government is picking up the tab. Free or very reduced internet. Free buses for the poor and retired people. If you live in an area without bus service, you can call and get a free ride and return. May older and poor use this service to get back and forth to doctors and other appointments. This even in some very red states.

Doesn't sound much like capitalism to me. I am not opposed to such things. I am not claiming that there are not some economic issues we have. But it creates cognitive dissonance in people that get their facts from our adversaries.

But yeah - there is a middle ground. Collective ownership can work as long as people understand there has a be a group of business savvy people running the business. That said, what I have seen in life is that many to most people don't actually have that savvy.

Well, how bow the communist revolution? Howbow Chairman Mao, Uncle Joe Stalin, Pol Pot. The revolution of the proletariat. Ha's that workin out for ya Comrade? The were some of teh best humanitarians amirite?