Ask ChatGPT When The Price Goes Up; Revealing Insights Into The Creator Economy

No such thing as a free launch

Big tech companies have spent billions of dollars integrating artificial intelligence into their products. Now they need to figure out how to turn a profit—and the method many have jumped on isn’t new or particularly sophisticated.

They give the first try for free.

On Tuesday, Google made all of its AI features — which previously cost $20 a month — free for Workspace users, The Verge news. Catch? Workspace plans will now cost $2 more per month.

Meanwhile on Wednesday Microsoft restarted your Copilot (the restart itself Bing Chat) like 365 Copilot Chat, which is available for free. However, users can also pay for additional AI agents based on usage or pay a $30 monthly fee to access the full Microsoft 365 Copilot service.

You may have noticed a pattern in that these features aren’t actually free. Users either pay more up front or are somehow throttled for additional services until they pay the full price of the subscription. (If you’re a Microsoft user in an Asia-Pacific country, you may even be dealing with a price increase and new fee structures, per Registry.)

Either way, this trend will only continue as major platforms dial up the monetization of AI chatbot data consumption.

Pornhub pays

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard a challenge to Texas’ age-verification law for adult websites. Chatting on social media about management sheds light on some surprising aspects of the maker economy.

Texas law requires websites to verify a visitor’s age if at least one-third of their content is classified as “sexual material harmful to minors.” Eighteen other states have passed similar laws.

During a High Court hearing, the trade group representing the porn site, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), admitted that 70% of its content could be considered obscene to children.

This revelation was induced asks Justice Samuel Alito FSC whether sites like Pornhub publish celebrity essays “like old Playboy”.

Pornhub may not publish articles by Gore Vidal or William F. Buckley Jr., but it hosts explainer videos about neural networks. Really.

Engineering PhD student turned adult content creator Zara Dar publishes non-pornographic STEM videos on YouTube and Pornhub. AND she claims its Pornhub ad revenue per view is three times that of YouTube.

However, TastyFPS and Raptor Bacon, two creators who post gaming videos on Pornhub, do previously claimed YouTube has a higher CPM.

Opponents of online age verification laws say they discourage adult users who fear sharing their data, which in turn threatens the revenue of creators — apparently even for non-adult content.

Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown

A law banning TikTok is proposed, per your own language“to protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by applications controlled by a foreign adversary”.

Well, clearly it backfired, as US TikTok users are so outraged by the decision that they’re flocking to other, more specifically Chinese social video apps instead.

The most popular so far is Xiaohongshu or RedNote, more accurately translated as “Little Red Book” (which has Maoist connotations). The app has gained more than 700,000 new users in the past few days, Reuters news. Meanwhile, Duolingo reports a 216% year-over-year increase in people signing up for Mandarin lessons, which attributes to users who learn the language “in spite of”.

Of course, this trend may not last and there are still a few snags to work out. Censorship of LGBTQ+ content, for example, may require stronger solutions than Americans are accustomed to, who unironically use the term “inanimate” to circumvent content moderation.

But the exodus is already setting the stage for a fascinating cross-cultural exchange — one that also happens to disrupt the best-laid plans of marketers who assumed that everyone would immediately switch from TikTok to Instagram or Pinterest.

It always ends up being a secret third thing, doesn’t it?

But wait! There’s more

Bluesky is working on its own photo sharing app called Flashes. [TechCrunch]

Opening arguments in the copyright lawsuit against OpenAI have begun for The New York Times. [Digiday]

Meanwhile, OpenAI will fund four new local Axios newsrooms. [Axios]

Walgreens CEO admits retailer’s anti-theft strategy has failed: “If you lock things up, you don’t sell as many.” [Business Insider]

More than 400 Washington Post employees say they are “deeply concerned” about the paper’s direction, according to an open letter to owner Jeff Bezos. [CNN]

State Farm is canceling its Super Bowl ad in response to the LA wildfires. [Ad Age]

You are hired

Nextdoor hires Michael Kiernan as its new CRO. [Adweek]

Out-of-home agency Billups appoints Ranganathan Somanathan to newly created role of managing director for global growth. [MediaPost]