They need less than $20/month though. Probably just a free tier with ads. That gets you google.

Right. So my worry – inasmuch that I worry for the state of the global economy – is that this doesn't generate valuations that match the current hype.

There's so much ad money to go around. It currently fuels Meta and Google. Let's say Anthropic and OpenAI enter the field and take a slice. That's a fine business, sure. But does it justify the state of the market?

> ad money/free tier

And at what cost to the underlying quality of the product and its utility, and will that cost be acceptable to the end users?

I think we've already demonstrated that the vast majority of people don't care.