• JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      They were back then. Only the ones that got so big they could negotiate their bandwidth costs or even buy out ISPs made it out alive. Everyone else was sunk by the exponential bandwidth costs.

      • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It was expensive, sure. But not entirely nonviable across the board like we see today with AI. It’s not even close.

        Those “Big companies that could afford to negotiate Bandwidth prices” don’t even exist in the AI context of today. They’re still speculative. If the bubble pops before that speculative future comes to fruition, the development of the technology towards that end stops.

        • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          The chatbots don’t have those because they don’t have anything worth paying for. Ebay, Google and the like all had something people really wanted so they were able to weather the bandwidth costs until they didn’t have to anymore.