Apples & oranges.

The AI industry is fundamentally judged based on its symbolic similarities to bygone eras. Buying GPUs and building data centers sort of feels like Amazon Web Services, even though the $765 billion that big tech will spend in 2026 will be more than ten times Amazon’s combined capex during the period where AWS was being built. ChatGPT sort of feels like Google Search or Facebook Ads or next app store, but only because it’s a culturally-relevant piece of software, largely driven by the larger cargo cult of tech crystalizing around it.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/cargo-culture/

There were a lot of companies that were unprofitable during dot com and failed.

The question would be if openai is like Amazon or webvan or Netscape or AOL or…

I would argue that openai is more overextended than amaxon was, and worse, they aren’t really seen as the leading company anyway, nor do they have a strong hook. Anthropic is broadly more well regarded, and Google has the captive audience of phones and browsers.

Despite this reporting suggests openai maybe the most insane purchasing commitments.

I don’t think it ends well for openAI, however durable AI market ends up otherwise.

I can run an open weights amazon from my house?

Until it was dominant and could abuse that power to squeeze everyone.

I’d argue this is dumping.

Not just Amazon either. A good few of the American monopolies. AI spending is the pattern repeating and it is a dark pattern for everyone.