I Just Canceled Perplexity 🤯🔍
I canceled one of my AI subscriptions today—Perplexity—and I’m honestly surprised I did. Perplexity was an early winner: I collected all the early AI subscriptions and was using it more than almost any other tool.
What Perplexity Was 🚀
For those who don’t know, Perplexity is like Google Search powered up with AI to deliver quick answers. People love(d) it. Perplexity is still growing—about 40 % month‑over‑month—and reportedly has 22 million monthly users.
The Classic Tech Pattern 🕰️
Here’s the catch: in every technology boom, the first winners often solve yesterday’s problems better—but they stick to an old pattern that ultimately doesn’t succeed.
MySpace thrived until Facebook reframed social media around real connection.
Yahoo mimicked a phone‑book hierarchy until Google delivered lightning‑fast search results.
Perplexity, by simply improving what existed before, risks becoming the next horse that dies. 🐴💀
Competition Is Catching Up 🏇💨
Google is rolling out richer AI‑generated answers.
Claude and others now offer fresher data with browsing access.
When the incumbents reinvent the experience itself, incremental enhancements aren’t enough.
The One Remaining Use‑Case 🧐
There’s still a niche for Perplexity: if you have fact‑based claims—say, a research paper—you can paste them in and let the tool fetch supporting sources for each quote. Beyond that, though, I fear Perplexity may be heading the way of the dodo. 🦤
