I think argument here is that anyone can build a business that converts $2 capital into $1 of revenue. Concur on enormous TAM, but given similar performance of competing models their only moat is ChatGPT brand*. This leaves building a God as the killer app... maybe that can work.
Note: owning a brand associated with the thing worked out pretty well for Google, so maybe it's enough.
Literally every other company has a conversational chatbot ( eg Gemini). Theres nothing sticky about chatgpt; if they raise prices users will immediately switch to another chatbot.
I think it really is different though because there's no network effect required for ChatGPT. Unless you're talking about the training data they get from those users which probably is invaluable.
Anyone can start making sponsorship deals and putting their AI into some service. And if that's really the secret sauce then AI firms will have to pay for it instead of people paying them to ask questions.
But chatbot don't really have any network effect, compared to Facebook etc. There isn't any added value two people using ChatGPT together. The new sora network, will have said network effect.
Note: owning a brand associated with the thing worked out pretty well for Google, so maybe it's enough.