So what suddenly happened that it became so popular, even though the same tech has existed for years now?
Is it just social media?
It required no tools or tech, just typing in a box. That opened the floodgates for people to think about using LLMs inside other apps and UIs.
Also, the quality of the output was better than anything the general public had seen and the program's writing style was made very pleasant and enjoyable to read. This stunned people and got their attention.