I think that the biggest thing to come from mobile was always available location, exemplified by Google Maps which already existed before mobile happened. Many of the most successful apps relied on this.

TikTok is different, in that it could have existed on desktop (but would have looked very different) whereas Uber (for example) definitely couldn't.

(Perhaps SMS plus some feature-phone-level of GPS integration.)

You'll pretty much would have had human operators over every interaction. That very much hinders the Uber-like growth of the service.

Falling back to a human operator isn't that bad either: just charge people a little bit extra to talk to a human.

One of the core features that made me use Uber was the map - I could see where the driver is going and how far away is he. Also, the app is localised into language that I can understand and I can see the price upfront without having to worry about getting scammed. Recently I had to book a taxi over the phone at the end of the world (literally - Ushuaia) in a language that I can barely speak and the experience was rather stressful in comparison with using an app.

Real-time mapping would be tricker if that's really a killer feature for you.

Or a voice connection with an operator.

I wouldn't under estimate the amount of friction reduced in having an app on your phone which a) is always with you, b) can also record top quality video and c) has a data plan good enough to upload there and then.

Yup, definitely. Effective mobile editing was a big driver of it's success.

That being said, while it's definitely more effective and popular on mobile how much of that is just down to more people using the internet on mobile relative to desktop.

This is unlike Maps or Uber which only make sense with mobile and always available location.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DailyBooth

I wish I could do software development from my phone the way people casually watch tiktok videos. The least unproductive thing I can currently do when trapped with only a phone is read HN.

(There might be other concern, eg around privacy, about giving your data away. But worrying about value isn't really one of them as an individual.)

(And btw, piracy only makes the data less valuable, because you lose the ability to sell it to someone who already has it. Not because the game or movie etc would become less enjoyable.)

Data is a moat. If you share it you're giving your advantage away.

Identity-specific data is sold all the time for everything from advertising to credit scores and what would otherwise be called social credit scores of they were run by the government instead of private companies.

I'd be curious to see how the price compares when selling 10k individuals' data versus aggregate data the 10k people. Presumably if it was cheaper to buy all the individual data I would do that and aggregate it myself.

Private investigators, three letter agencies, and any company wanting to send mailers to my new address when I move all need the individual data to target me specifically.

I totally agree the aggregate data is given more value in a commercial market heavily focused on advertising and now training LLMs, my only point was that there are markets that highly value individual data as well.

I think the point stands that it wouldn't be easy to sell your individual data, and even if you could, it would be for a pittance from someone who is looking to build a large dataset. They certainly wouldn't be giving you an amount that justifies advice like "hold on to your data".

>What if I want to keep my history on but disable model training?

We are working on a new offering called ChatGPT Business that will opt end-users out of model training by default. In the meantime, you can opt out from our use of your data to improve our services by filling out this form. Once you submit the form, new conversations will not be used to train our models

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScrnC-_A7JFs4LbIuze...

That's funny for me to read almost 15 years after rjdj [0] There is a difference between an idea that is possible, and an idea whose time has come.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RjDj

You mean how fast that took, right?

So, yeah, there was a maybe five year (and certainly less than ten) period when smartphones went from a fairly niche thing to ubiquity which is very fast compared to technology adoption generally.

Then overlay that with the limiting factors for AI/LLMs.

I had a third-party logistics startup in 2007 that I would have loved to turn into Uber for shipping, but it would be at least a few years before the cell networks and ownership of smartphones reached a point where it was possible.

I don't know if there are limiting factors that will delay LLMs potential to disrupt the status quo.