The moat is the infrastructure and lock-in. Similar to AWS or anything else. Small data centers can't compete, and similarly people without massive compute won't be able to either (at least not on the enterprise level.) You might get a few edge models, but for huge businesses they will be using OpenAI and Anthropic (and Google/Microsoft/Amazon, etc).
The biggest competitors aren't small models, they are just the traditional players that already have an "in" with enterprises. That I think will start to show its face once this initial round of buildout is complete, which may not be for another 5+ years.
The only "bubble" with AI is that the initial build out is cyclical, and many of the high flying chip stocks with no software arms (ala Nvidia's CUDA) will come back to Earth. I think anyone that thinks AI is going away or won't have massive impact (though maybe not in the doomsday scenario) are in complete denial.
Tesla trades at a massive multiple, Microsoft doesn't. I think a lot of you just hate Microsoft and ignore (or rather prefer to pretend) the reality that the world runs on it.
> "GitHub Copilot had competitive pricing until yesterday when they changed from per-request to one of the most expensive per-token quotas. Seriously, take a look at their burning subreddit for some laughs"
AI is expensive and it has been heavily subsidized. I you think $20/mo for Codex/Claude flat vs a more usage based model you're in for a shock. Especially once these companies go public and have to meet investor expectations.
AI snippets are just terrible, I always just scroll past it. I want to find the website I'm looking for, if I wanted to use AI I'd open up an AI app or website.
America is very very rich, the average person is much wealthier than the average European. 76% of Americans do not live paycheck to paycheck. That is a self reported stat and not reliable. It's a media sensationalist headline grabber which virtually every economist ignores.
People don't like saying America is rich because it defies their beliefs, but the actual stats don't lie. Every American I know that has moved to Europe (and I have lived there as well, in Munich) moved there with, shock...American money and savings. So they don't actually get the initial start many Europeans do and it clouds their view to think that's just how all Europeans live.
That doesn't guarantee that this will always be true, but given Europe's current trajectory, even with the US's many shortcomings...it's hard to say Europe will catch up anytime soon.
I read enough HN to know what it is -absolutely- true. HN comments, including this thread, often just read like BlueSky screeds half the time the US, US government or Sam Altman/Elon Musk/etc are mentioned.
They all deserve criticism, but when that's all a thread turns into when these items come up, well the discussion becomes very hollow and partisan really quickly.
It seems you or the team have culled many of them. There was one in particular that stood out but it seems to have been removed or they are heavily buried now. I just saw your post further down the thread, so you have seen them and I assume action was taken, thanks. There are still some that I find distasteful, but not as bad as what I was originally seeing towards the top.
There are people actively insinuating in this thread that Sam should be...killed, and they are still up. Very odd moderation, surely there is a better way to flag these things.
Even assuming what you're saying is correct and government spending doesn't matter (odd thing to say when you're arguing that the government has been "gutted,") your own chart is only flat over time because of USPS workers being less due to automation/retirement and there being less military recruitment (both account for about ~1.5M employees lost,) and doesn't include offloading to contractors. Underlying agencies and government is bigger than ever before. The government (federal AND state levels) itself is much larger, with more regulations, than it was even 20 years ago.
Every company has bureaucracy, but it's nothing compared to government work. Also, government has no competition, bureaucracy in big companies will eventually be punished (even if it takes a long time.) In government it is often rewarded, both internally and externally (via regulatory capture, etc.)
In any case, saying the federal government has been "gutted" is a flat lie. I don't see how people can argue otherwise. I want more money going to NASA, and more money going to civil projects like HSR, but would that magically remove 15 years of bureaucratic mess? No. More money to these projects can only happen on a large political scale if/when the bureaucratic red tape is cut to lower the costs. Adding an additional layer of bureaucrats and middle managers and pot of gold everyone can dip their hands in before it reaches the final project doesn't fix the issue.
That's per 100k (which just says it's mostly flat per 100k), net spending of the federal government is more than ever, and actual workforce is bigger than ever. Federal spending as a percentage of GDP is stubbornly high despite us being in "peace time," and not recession spending.
If you all don't think bureaucracy is the main driver of government delays...well you clearly have never worked with or in and around government. I try to live in reality.
The politicization of everything and constant doomerish on here sure has echoes of early 2000s Slashdot. That's not a compliment. Reading the comments here is actually depressing. Human progress is never all at once, we can't even celebrate this triumph? Life is almost never "one or the other," the program could be scrapped to a junk yard and that wouldn't solve global hunger or global conflicts. Setting human eyes forward is good.
Don't confuse bureaucracy with "gutted." The federal government is bigger than at most any point in US history. Arguably that fact is -why- it's 15 years behind schedule.
The US attacking one of Russia's only remaining allies, and one of their biggest arms dealers, is a backdoor effort to help Russia? How does that even make sense? I really think people should log off for a while and actual evaluate what they are saying instead of listening to totally online grifters.
Could this help Russia in the very short term? Sure, does it mostly hurt them in the long run? Probably a lot more so, assuming the regime were to actually fall especially (feels like it's not going to at this point.)
The US not being able to control their strait also shows China just how difficult controlling the "South China Sea" would be in the event of an invasion of Taiwan. Which is just a stupid coincidence.