Part 8/12:
The Battle to Become the Default
Despite all these efforts, changing the entrenched habits of billions of users remains the greatest challenge. Google’s complexity isn’t just technological—it’s psychological and infrastructural. The company’s history of building products like Chrome and Android shows that owning distribution channels is crucial for enduring dominance.
OpenAI’s current advantage is the mental association—“ChatGPT” has become a household name. That’s their biggest asset. But this asset is ephemeral; they are living on borrowed time until they find a way to lock users into their ecosystem—much like Google did with Chrome and Android.