ChatGPT doesn't have PMF for 80% or more of its users.
...s that has momentum from selling dollar bills for 50 cents. True PMF requires a business model that is viable.
Topic: business model
61 chunks · 49 episodes
1.9x burst in 2026 Q1
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Peak quarter intensity across the topic's active span. Higher values mean attention was concentrated into a shorter stretch rather than spread evenly over time.
Topic summary
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A short read on the topic's time range, peak episode, and strongest associations. Use it as the quick orientation before drilling into examples.
- business model appears in 61 chunks across 49 episodes, from 2023-10-30 to 2026-10-12.
- Its densest episode is Bits and Bobs 5/19/25 (2025-05-19), with 3 observations on this topic.
- Semantically it travels with viable business, marginal cost, and vertical saas, while by chunk count it sits between vast majority and pace layer; its yearly rank moved from #25 in 2023 to #17 in 2026.
Over time
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Raw mentions over time. Use this to see absolute attention, not relative rank among all topics.
Observations
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The primary evidence view for this topic. Sort it chronologically when you want concrete examples behind the larger pattern.
How will LLMs affect open source quality?
How will LLMs affect open source quality? It definitely undermines the business models of e.g. Tailwind. Those models are unlikely to ever work again. But now engineers don't need to use libraries. "Obviously I'm not going to write my ...
LLMs commoditizing software could have a huge impact on society.
...tential of software. Today the only software that exists is software that has a business model in the app distribution paradigm. The software that should exist is any software that people find useful.
Cory Doctorow has an interesting thinking-persons' guide against AI.
...mans (good) vs. humans as meat peripherals for uncaring machines (the actual AI business model) The Growth Stock Trap: Monopolies must inflate endless bubbles (video, crypto, metaverse, AI) to avoid catastrophic stock revaluation—winning the be...
Ben Thompson says OpenAI does have a business model they aren't embracing: ads.
Ben Thompson says OpenAI does have a business model they aren't embracing: ads.[fm] But that feels fundamentally dangerous in a chat. The question is: how effective can the wall be between ads and orga...
The Coasian theory of the program: what is the ideal size?
...onsumer install). An app has to be big enough to contain within itself a viable business model. But LLMs can produce code cheaply. They are willing to produce itsy bitsy pieces of code that no human would have bothered with if it couldn't be di...
An AI consulting business model for people with a strong personal brand:
An AI consulting business model for people with a strong personal brand: "You'll get 80% the quality of my hands-on consulting for 20% the cost."
It's hard to find a shopping list app to coordinate with your family.
...feature you want. So you end up with no way of coordinating a shopping list. No business model has an incentive to make a great shopping list app, let alone a great one for you.
Virality is in tension with community.
...ity is in tension with community. Social media needs to select for virality for business models. Social media is in tension with community.
The service you choose to converse with again will be, all else equal, the one that "got you" and told you you were smart / funny / attractive.
...sn't want it. Engagement is necessary for retention, which is necessary for the business model.
Most of the challenge of making software is tailoring it to work for specific people.
...nger a moat like it has been for decades. The foundation of the tech industry's business models.
Why is VC so powerful in Silicon valley?
...remely capital intensive, which means only businesses that have a safe, legible business model can get financing. Bits-based businesses have startup costs, but much less, relative to their possible scale. That's a great fit for venture investin...
Value arises from scarcity.
Value arises from scarcity. If you apply a business model from one distribution paradigm to another you're going to miss the point.[cn] It took a decade or more of the web to discover the social media busine...
Stable business models require that where the cost and the value accrues are aligned.
Stable business models require that where the cost and the value accrues are aligned. If they're disjoint then the user feels like they're getting cheated, or the business...
You can't fight incentives with culture.
... time scales, culture is downstream of incentives. Incentives are downstream of business model.
Every business model is misaligned with users in the limit.
Every business model is misaligned with users in the limit. But some are more misaligned with their users. Even subscriptions see the siren's call for marginal returns of...
AI must have a subscription to be user-aligned.
...all you need… a neverending force of gravity not just for training LLMs but for business models too.
Goodhart's law is what leads to business models being misaligned with consumers in the limit.
Goodhart's law is what leads to business models being misaligned with consumers in the limit. Companies are a swarm of employees making interdependent decisions whose ground truth is the business ...
The endstate of aggregator business models is retail media.
The endstate of aggregator business models is retail media. "Retail media" is ads within the aggregator's 1P UX. Step 1: capture all demand. Step 2: offer to steer that demand to advertisers,...
I want a new category of thing: Private Intelligence.
...gned with your interests. Not some veneer of privacy, but holistically[oe]: The business model. The technical architecture. The privacy model. Everyone should have a Private Intelligence that works only for them, and is entirely aligned with th...