What Do You Think About Ad Monetization?

GPT builders Plugin store
1

Hi,

I am excited about ChatGPT plugins, which, I believe, are leading a major change from GUIs to chat UIs. Every previous platform (such as internet and mobile) enabled developers to benefit from it economically through direct monetization. In line with this, I am sure that many forms of revenue generation (such as in-app purchases, one-time purchases, ads, subscriptions, and more) will be successfully applied within plugins. In this context, my particular interest is to help plugin developers monetize their products through what I know best, ads.

I have spent the past four years as a Product Technology Manager at Google Ads. After my departure from the company in March, a friend and I decided to build an ad monetization service for ChatGPT plugins.

We launched a pilot two weeks ago in @JD_2020 's Web Requests and a much smaller crypto plugin by another publisher. (screenshot)
In this very first version, we show non-targeted static text ads. And we are working to expand to other ad formats and personalization algorithms.
We learned a lot and made some good extra income for Josh during this experiment; and now I would love to hear from you.

If you have thoughts (either positive or skeptical) and/or questions about ads in ChatGPT, please share them. I will be glad to know what this community of developers with published plugins thinks and to answer all your questions and comments.

P.S. We have also built the “xkcd AI” plugin to understand the developer workflow. It turned out to be a fun product to use. Try it out too (once Replit solves its DNS problem lol).

Jahangir

2 Likes
2

Interested in this. Especially since server costs aren’t free for a solo developer… I also believe some plugins draw some users to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus which in turn helps OpenAI. I’m curious if this is against OpenAI’s Terms and Conditions?

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3

Ads are by their nature lies.

Restrictions. Your API and Plugin Responses will not: …; (ii) interact with our users in a manner that is deceptive, false, misleading, or harassing

I don’t want to be harassed by content that is misleading “the perfect payment solutions” for a false case (my nonexistent “business”) when I want to read news.

4

Additionally, plugins cannot return static pre-written content.

This plugin is almost certainly in violation and should be removed.

5

Thank you for you interest and feedback, @fogel-j .

Alignment with the Terms and Conditions

I have looked into OpenAI’s Terms and Conditions; and everything that we, Promptate Ads, do is aligned with these rules.

I understand that some consumers and developers may not like ads; but most of the T&C interpretations, that I heard from community members (i.e. not OpenAI staff) in a couple of discussions on this forum, are, in my opinion, far-fetched.
(I agree with one point in this thread that having a hardcoded string in a response may be an issue. I will validate this clause; and, if needed, we will address this in the next version.)

Demo

You can try the solution by ingesting a demo ad into your plugin’s response in a local environment using Python code below. (Let me know if you need a snippet in another language.)
Once done, please share your feedback. I will be very glad to answer general follow up questions here or to discuss more specific steps in DMs.

import requests
from fastapi import Request

...

@app.post("/endpoint")
async def endpoint(request: Request):

  ...

  plugin_name = "demo"
  developer_token = "promptate:qnkg1zpurm0wjrw6"
  user_id = request.headers['openai-ephemeral-user-id']

  headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {developer_token}", "OpenAI-User-ID": user_id}
  ad = requests.get(f"https://ads.promptate.com/getad/{plugin_name}", headers=headers).json()["message"]

  ...

  return ...
1 Like
6

Thank you for your comment too. But:

  • The logic that “ads are lies and content that includes ads is harassment” seems intentionally flawed to me.
  • The argument about seeing ads when reading news also does not appear strong. News publishers included ads in all mediums, be it (news)papers, website, or mobile applications. Some people like this, some people don’t; but this has never been illegal.

That being said, thank you for sharing your thoughts.

7

This may be a valid point. Thank you!
I will check the interpretation and, if confirmed, will make changes to the product.
Thanks!

8

In any event it certainly goes against the spirit of the product.

I’m pretty sure OpenAI isn’t interested in having their product poisoned with ads.

1 Like
9

I support monetization, but I think ads are for an older era, before the days of microtransactions. Back in the day when there was no Patreon, no PayPal. There’s a lot of discomfort around data and AI and there’s discomfort around data and ads, so I don’t think people are happy with the two coming together. I’d probably just avoid something pitching ads in ChatGPT.

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10

I just think that we need to, at some point, stop letting ad-people ruin nice things.

They won’t be satisfied until everything, everywhere is an ad for something else.

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11

I hear you. I build Web Requests about as authentic to the culture as I can. Authenticity is my only constant in life I find, and it anchors me. What that
Means is, I didn’t really build it, GPT did.

But I’ve felt your way about advertising before. And @jahangir is the only one who seems to be as committed to authenticity as I am, and with actual vision for how to change the ad game to align it better for the new future we are in store for.

In a sea Of plugins grifting and paying fake AI gurus with mouth agaped thumbnails and Clickbait titles to take advantage of human weaknesses like always, he’s just doing the work hard way because it’s right.

That’s why I can say for sure, and I hope you see the perspective a little differently now.

2 Likes
12

Thanks for your response @jahangir . I’m just a little nervous at this point without hearing confirmation from OpenAI to start using the ads. I don’t want my plugin that to be blocked because of it. It’s a good idea though

1 Like
13

Thank you, @smuzani . Honestly, I love this constructive feedback.
If you have 30 minutes, I would love to chat and hear more well-articulated critical thoughts. I will DM you.

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14

Thank you, @JD_2020!

Josh and I have been partnering for ~1 month. And I am so happy that my intent of doing things right has been felt/understood.
I am sure that I make small mistakes here and there; but we are working hard to benefit developers, consumers, and my team without compromising anyone’s privacy and user experience.

15

I complete understand you, @fogel-j . No hard feelings.
Once I get a definitive answer from OpenAI, I will share it here with you and everyone else.