I bet OpenAI is losing money on every prompt interaction you do. Estimates of the computational power required and the number of users, are that if was not for Microsoft cash injection it would be bankrupt by now.
Sure, but it puts Google in a lose-lose situation. If people come to expect the features of ChatGPT, Google will have to add them in and greatly decrease the profitability of search. On top of that, it will cost them 10 times more since they have 10 times the market. They could also ignore ChatGPT, but a portion of their users will migrate to other search engines also costing them money. For Microsoft, search is one of a dozen business lines they are in, what do they care about destroying the profitability of search if it hurts their competitors more?
It has started to monetise and Microsoft’s pockets are deep enough to cover the difference until profitability is achieved.
But it could become a new Concorde, on the way to the mythical AGI... only affordable for some, never profitable.
There are already lightweight models that are in the ballpark of GPT3.5 that run on (admittedly high end) consumer level hardware. This is with only a few months of development too.