Doc Searls Weblog

Redraw your conclusions

The GDPR Enforcement Tracker "is an overview of fines and penalties which data protection authorities within the EU have imposed under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, DSGVO)." And extremely interesting. Dig around. You'll see fines against dentists, cops, a password management company, finaincial institutions, municipalities, website operators, a coin dealer, a YMCA, TikTok (£14+million), a cabinet office, Mermaids (sic), banks, retailers, universities, government agencies, a hospital, a city council, an insurance company, Amazon Europe Core S.à.r.l. (€746 million, by Luxembourg), and so on. The most common, it looks (at least to me) are government entities of many kinds. 

A way to bet

Will Lockett says OpenAI Is Headed For Bankruptcy. His case: "recent investigations have found that less than 5% of ChatGPT users actually pay for the service. That is a dogs**t conversion rate — especially when you consider OpenAI is selling ChatGPT at a staggering loss to try and get more customers through the door. Even their top-tier $200-per-month plan loses them buckets of money. In short, OpenAI’s income is devastatingly underperforming."

He says Atlas and Sora are both duds, and OpenAI's new ad biz will fail too. I don't disagree.

I'll add that I'm in that 5% of ChatGPT customers (not mere freeloading "users"), and lately I've found Gemini to be faster, free, and at least as good. Also, Google is in a far better position to leverage countless other advantages because it's a giant and diversified mf. That doesn't make me love Google, or even like it. In fact, I consider it the top stinker in the adtech fecosystem, and trust it as far as I can throw it.

But, as a successful and generous (not enshittified) business guy told me a few years ago, "We need giants to throw off surpluses. It helps to have some outfits making too much money." He was talking about the real (aka Main Street) economy. Not the financial one. The relevant point here is that Google is investing its real economy surpluses into Gemini, while OpenAI is spending its investors' speculative bubble money into ChatGPT. Google, with deeper pockets, more science, and plenty of data centers, is far more poised to win the long game in Big AI, even if that game is over in two years. Ditto, in a smaller way, for Meta. Same reasons.

You're welcome

NASA: Asteroid 2024 YR4 will certainly miss Earth and has a 96.2% chance of missing the Moon. I share this in faint hope that when one sees BS on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or social media wherever saying the asteroid is going to have a spectacular impact on the Moon, they'll know it's BS.