Eric Siu argues ChatGPT is an emerging distribution channel. Google currently captures 42% of search traffic while ChatGPT holds 0.19%, but the gap is closing fast. He predicts it will follow the same path as Facebook and Instagram: free organic reach now, pay-to-play later.
The question is, is the new distribution channel ChatGPT? And before we even answer that question, when you think about Facebook back in the day, organic, anything you posted on Facebook would get a lot of views, right? And then eventually you'd have to pay for it. LinkedIn, now it's kind of trending in that direction. Strong organic reach, it's kind of moving into paid, right? So you always get really strong organic distribution in the beginning and eventually you have to pay for it. Now, for the moment with ChatGPT, sure, you know, with all searches, Google's still 42% and ChatGPT or LLMs, I think it's only like 0.19%, but it's growing quickly. Is the new distribution channel ChatGPT? And I would argue that I think it's a strong new distribution channel for people to consider. And there probably is good organic reach to think about right now. But eventually you're going to have to— it's going to become more pay-to-play. And same thing with Snap in the very beginning, or when Stories launched on Instagram, they tend to favor these new features. And so I think that it's definitely worth paying attention to. And eventually it's going to kind of whittle down, but it's in the early stages of growing really quickly. It's still small, but it's growing quickly.
