OpenAI's business value now comes mostly from the consumer subscriptions, not the underlying LLM model.

· Bits and Bobs 8/11/25
  • OpenAI's business value now comes mostly from the consumer subscriptions, not the underlying LLM model.
    • They started off by having the first break-out model quality.
    • But now their value is less the model (there's a whole peloton of similar-quality competitors), but mainly the momentum of the massive subscription base.
    • Put another way: which would OpenAI choose to give up if they had to?
      • Their proprietary model?
      • Or their existing subscription user base?
    • If you swapped ChatGPT's model for Llama right now ChatGPT would probably continue to win the consumer space.[cx]

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