The Real Moat Was Never the Model — It Was the Noun

A sharp take argues Google keeps out-shipping OpenAI on research while losing on the thing that matters: becoming the default.

Amid all the model-capability chest-thumping, Armaan Sidhu offered a useful corrective: "Google ships models faster than it ships them to users... OpenAI's advantage was never the model. ChatGPT became the default noun." It is a distribution argument, and it is a good one. Raw capability is table stakes; the durable advantage is being the product people reach for reflexively.

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