Paid Online Search: Why Google and Microsoft Want You to Pay

Let’s be frank here. Our knowledge of ChatGPT is merely the tip of the iceberg. No, tech companies aren’t spending billions of dollars only to provide you with free assistance with planning your dinner party or making memes.

If you follow the money, you might see why Google and Microsoft are rushing to adopt generative AI or ChatGPT-like bots.

There is an easy solution. Tech businesses have discovered a new, non-advertising business model. Soon, searching for information online might require payment. Sadly, Google and Microsoft are the search engines of choice for most internet users.

Do you recall how services like Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox, and iCloud were introduced to us? Tech firms advised customers to upload everything for free to Google Drive, Photos, and iCloud since the cloud is so amazing.

After ten years, we now have smartphones with excellent 200-megapixel cameras that produce images with a file size of about 20MB. Your free storage space on Google Drive or iCloud is still 5GB or 15GB, respectively. To save your own images and emails, you are actually required to pay companies like Google, Apple, and others.

Of course, you can decide not to pay if you want to put up with the annoying task of juggling hard drives and numerous Google accounts.

The search might no longer be free in the near future. Alternatively, simply to be politically correct, generative AI-based search engines will only be free to a certain point.

Every day, Google handles close to 9 billion search requests. nine billion. Google receives 9 billion free searches every day. If Google can make even 1% of money per day from those 9 billion queries. In fact, Google might be able to purchase all of Europe.

Even though ChatGPT had our full support, all that was shown was the trailer.

There are more generative AI bots on the market besides ChatGPT. It’s not the end of the world just because you’ve heard of ChatGPT. There are already a lot of alternatives to ChatGPT. Not to mention, there are currently AI platforms that can produce both images and movies in addition to generative AI for text search.

In the coming years, businesses like Google, Microsoft, and others will launch freemium versions of their search engines.

While the standard Google Search or Microsoft Bing, which is supported by advertisements, will probably continue to be free, you would need to pay to use Generative AI-based search. Additionally, if you visit ChatGPT’s subscription page, you can already see the hints.

So, here’s a notion as to how Google, Microsoft, and other companies might charge you for using their platforms to conduct information searches.

Of course, you’ll start out with a few complimentary credits. Say, for instance, that Google offers everyone $15 in free credits to use their Generative AI-based Google Search.

Now, as soon as you ask a query to this bot, Google will calculate how many FLOPS will be needed to provide you with a response.

The amount of CPU power needed to respond to queries like “Will it rain tomorrow?” and “Write a Javascript function to print out hashed passwords” will obviously differ.

You could have to pay a few cents for some answers, whereas more complicated ones might set you back much more.

As soon as your free $15 worth of credit expires, you will be required to pay to continue. Additionally, you’ll probably pay Google if you’re addicted to getting immediate answers without conducting your own research or studying.

The only lure is ChatGPT. We’re all thrilled that major Internet businesses are discovering a revenue stream for the internet that doesn’t solely rely on adverts. However, if you consider the bigger picture, Google or its parent company Alphabet is after profits, and consumers adore ChatGPT, so the relationship is mutual.

Our parents never expected us to spend money on photo storage services like Google Photos. Or they fail to see why young people would spend real money on a fictitious assault rifle in games like PUBG.

To begin with, you should upskill yourself so that you can foresee and respond to inquiries for AI platforms in order to land a high-paying position.