OpenAI is fighting several different wars simultaneously: frontier intelligence, consumer mindshare, enterprise/developer loyalty, inference economics, ecosystem lock-in, and open-vs-closed distribution.
Their most recent tactic: rolling out unlimited text chats for free users, globally.
What Sun Tzu might say:
“Use the ordinary to establish expectations; use surprise to create momentum.”
Momentum comes from combining what people expect with what they do not expect; standards create credibility, while surprise changes the situation.
ChatGPT already supplies the standard:
- familiar interface
- established brand
- established user behavior
- broad capability
Then comes the surprise:
- Remove the chat quota for free users.
Tzu translator, Gary Gagliardi, specifically says surprise becomes useful when built upon established standards, AND that it should then be converted rapidly into a real position.
That’s the whole point: Unlimited free usage is valuable only if OpenAI converts the resulting attention into a stronger position.
RW
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