How Do New Ad Platforms Start — and Where Do They End Up?
When OpenAI announced that it would begin testing ads on ChatGPT, the immediate response from marketers was tactical: how much will it cost, how will targeting work, and should we shift budget from Google or Meta? But a longer-term question is more important: what kind of advertising platform will ChatGPT become, and will it follow the same trajectory as every other major ad-supported platform?
The pattern is well-documented. Platforms begin by prioritizing user experience, building massive scale, and resisting monetization. Once they achieve market dominance, they introduce ads — first sparingly, then aggressively. Over time, the platform’s incentives shift from serving users to maximizing advertiser revenue, often at the expense of both user satisfaction and advertiser ROI.
Cory Doctorow has described this process as enshittification — a predictable decay in platform quality driven by the need to extract value from two-sided markets. The cycle affects nearly every major consumer internet platform: Facebook, Google, Amazon, TikTok, YouTube, and countless others.
ChatGPT is now entering that cycle. The question is whether OpenAI can avoid the same outcome — and whether performance marketers should trust the platform’s long-term viability.
The Three-Stage Platform Lifecycle
Doctorow’s framework describes how platforms evolve in three predictable stages. First, they subsidize users to build scale. Second, they subsidize business customers (advertisers, sellers, creators) to build supply. Third, they extract value from both groups once lock-in is achieved.
In stage one, platforms offer exceptional user experiences to grow rapidly. ChatGPT did this by providing unlimited free access to one of the most capable AI models available. No ads, no paywalls, no friction — just immediate utility for millions of users.
In stage two, platforms court advertisers and content creators by offering favorable terms. Facebook gave brands organic reach. YouTube shared revenue generously with creators. Amazon gave sellers access to massive customer bases with minimal fees. ChatGPT is entering this phase now by testing ads with carefully controlled placement and privacy-first policies, as described in OpenAI’s official approach.
In stage three, platforms tighten the screws. Organic reach disappears. Fees increase. Ad density rises. User experience degrades. Advertisers pay more for worse results. Users tolerate more interruptions for less value. The platform maximizes short-term revenue at the expense of long-term trust.
Most platforms follow this path because their business models demand it. Venture capital, public market expectations, and competitive pressure all push platforms toward aggressive monetization. The question is whether OpenAI — a company that positions itself as mission-driven and safety-focused — will resist that trajectory.
What Stage Is ChatGPT In Right Now?
ChatGPT is clearly in the early part of stage two. OpenAI is introducing ads cautiously, with strict guidelines that prioritize user experience and privacy. Ads will appear only at the bottom of responses, only for free-tier users, and only when contextually relevant. Advertisers will not receive access to conversation data, and ads will not appear near sensitive topics.
This is the honeymoon phase. Advertisers get access to a high-intent, high-engagement audience with minimal competition. Users experience ads that are (in theory) relevant and non-intrusive. OpenAI builds revenue while maintaining its user-first reputation.
But the economic pressures are real. Training and running large language models is extraordinarily expensive. Free users represent a massive cost with limited direct revenue. As early reporting from Wired suggests, ads are a necessary step toward sustainability — but sustainability often leads to increasing ad density, more aggressive targeting, and declining user satisfaction.
The real test will be what happens when growth slows and revenue targets tighten. Will OpenAI hold the line on user experience, or will it follow the same path as Facebook, which went from “no ads” to “ads everywhere” in less than a decade?
Why Platforms Always Prioritize Advertisers Over Users
The mechanics are simple. Users provide attention and engagement, but advertisers provide revenue. Once a platform achieves market dominance, users have fewer alternatives and higher switching costs. Advertisers, by contrast, can redirect budgets to competing platforms if performance declines.
This asymmetry means platforms have strong incentives to prioritize advertiser demands — more inventory, better targeting, more data access — even when those demands degrade user experience. Facebook’s News Feed became increasingly ad-heavy because advertisers needed more impressions. Google’s search results became cluttered with ads because advertisers needed more clicks. TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes engagement over user well-being because advertisers pay for attention.
ChatGPT faces the same structural pressures. If advertisers demand more prominent placements, OpenAI will face pressure to comply. If users complain about ad density, OpenAI will weigh that feedback against revenue targets. And if competitors offer ad-free alternatives, OpenAI will need to decide whether to compete on user experience or double down on monetization.
For performance marketers evaluating ChatGPT as a channel, this means thinking beyond immediate ROI and considering platform stability. As discussed in our analysis of ChatGPT advertising for performance marketers, early adopters may benefit from low competition and favorable placement — but those advantages rarely last once a platform scales.
What Could Go Wrong (and What Could Go Right)
The pessimistic scenario is that ChatGPT follows the standard platform trajectory. Ads become more frequent, less relevant, and more intrusive. Users migrate to ad-free alternatives or competing AI platforms. Advertiser ROI declines as inventory floods the market and targeting becomes less precise. OpenAI extracts short-term revenue at the expense of long-term platform health.
The optimistic scenario is that OpenAI learns from the mistakes of previous platforms and builds a more sustainable model. This could mean strict limits on ad density, stronger privacy protections, and a commitment to keeping ads contextually relevant rather than behaviorally targeted. It could mean diversifying revenue streams — premium subscriptions, API access, enterprise licenses — so that ads never become the dominant business model.
The precedent is mixed. Google maintained a relatively user-friendly search experience for years by keeping ads clearly labeled and relevant. But even Google has gradually increased ad density, introduced confusing labeling, and prioritized advertiser interests over organic results. The economic incentives are hard to resist.
For ChatGPT specifically, the risk is that AI-generated answers become a vehicle for sponsored content rather than objective information. If users start to perceive ChatGPT as biased toward advertisers, trust erodes — and trust is the foundation of any AI platform’s value proposition.
What This Means for Advertisers and Marketers
In the short term, ChatGPT ads represent an experimental opportunity. Early access to a high-intent audience, limited competition, and favorable placement terms create conditions for strong early performance. Agencies managing Google Ads, SEO, and marketing automation should treat ChatGPT as a beta channel worth testing — but not as a long-term pillar of acquisition strategy.
In the medium term, the platform’s trajectory will become clearer. If OpenAI resists aggressive monetization and maintains user trust, ChatGPT ads could become a durable performance channel. If OpenAI follows the standard platform lifecycle, early advantages will disappear as competition increases and ad quality declines.
In the long term, the broader shift is more important than any single platform. Conversational AI is changing how users discover information, evaluate solutions, and make purchasing decisions. Whether ChatGPT becomes the dominant platform or is replaced by competitors, the underlying behavior shift is real.
That means the strategic priority is not just buying ads on ChatGPT — it’s positioning your brand to appear naturally in AI-driven evaluations. This requires strong content, domain authority, trusted expertise, and the kind of information architecture that AI systems rely on when synthesizing answers.
The Uncomfortable Question
Should performance marketers trust a platform that is likely to prioritize advertisers over users once scale is achieved?
The honest answer is no — but that is true for every major ad platform. Google, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Amazon all operate under the same incentives. What matters is understanding the lifecycle, anticipating the trajectory, and adjusting strategy accordingly.
For now, ChatGPT ads are in the honeymoon phase. Take advantage of early access, test performance, and gather data. But do not over-commit budget or build dependency on a platform whose long-term incentives may not align with advertiser success.
The smarter long-term strategy is to invest in brand positioning, content authority, and marketing analytics infrastructure that works across multiple channels. Platforms come and go. User behavior evolves. But brands that consistently show up in the places where decisions are made — whether that is Google search, ChatGPT conversations, or whatever comes next — will always have a competitive advantage.