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Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

wsj.com

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Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#131

Post by voxl »

kccqzy wrote: post #129
bgwalter wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could simply restore the search quality they had in 2010. No one wants these "AI" summaries except for people looking to get promoted for "having an impact" inside Google. What Google is doing right now is sabotage the search moat they do have. They are throwing it all away because of some "AI" rainmakers inside the company.

That's impossible unless the web reverted back to 2010, when walled gardens weren't prevalent, making your own blog was common, doable and often done by those without programming experience, forums were alive and well, and people wanted to share things on the web rather than group chats.

There are plenty of blogs, plenty of obvious low quality spam to block, plenty of features to enable allowlist and blocklists. To think for a second that the Google search experience couldn't be made significantly better at the snap of a finger by Google is to live in a fantasy world.

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#132

Post by bdangubic »

bgwalter wrote: post #122
spankalee wrote: post #21

Google's damned if they do and damned if the don't here: - If they don't make search AI centric, they're going to get lapped by AI-first competitors like Perplexity, OpenAI, etc. We saw many people here predict Google's pending demise from this. - If they do make search centric, they're unfairly consuming they world's content and hoarding the user traffic to themselves. Since no reasonable company is just going to st…

They could simply restore the search quality they had in 2010. No one wants these "AI" summaries except for people looking to get promoted for "having an impact" inside Google. What Google is doing right now is sabotage the search moat they do have. They are throwing it all away because of some "AI" rainmakers inside the company.

they are losing more and more search to “AI.” my 12-year old never uses Google and couple of times I asked her to “Google it” she literally rolled on the floor laughing and called me a “boomer” :)

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#133

Post by lostmsu »

w-ll wrote: post #107
marcuschong wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny most people are saying Google will win the AI wars, though that is precisely what will cannibalize their current business model, which had a much bigger moat than frontier LLMs, apparently.

You think we wont start seeing ads or paid for refs/links in those AI responses? Not defending Google here, when they turned that feature on I posted to some friends "another nail in the coffin for the web as we know it" or something to that effect.

Eventually open models will be able to do the same, so why would anyone use ad-ridden service? The first LLM provider who turns on ads on their responses will disappear in a brink.

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#134

Post by irjustin »

bgwalter wrote: post #122
spankalee wrote: post #21

Google's damned if they do and damned if the don't here: - If they don't make search AI centric, they're going to get lapped by AI-first competitors like Perplexity, OpenAI, etc. We saw many people here predict Google's pending demise from this. - If they do make search centric, they're unfairly consuming they world's content and hoarding the user traffic to themselves. Since no reasonable company is just going to st…

They could simply restore the search quality they had in 2010. No one wants these "AI" summaries except for people looking to get promoted for "having an impact" inside Google. What Google is doing right now is sabotage the search moat they do have. They are throwing it all away because of some "AI" rainmakers inside the company.

Simply untrue. I don't want it back. I use ChatGPT's voice transcribing to do 99% of my searches today.

Google does need to adapt or die

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#135

Post by bitpush »

vgeek wrote: post #31
spankalee wrote: post #21

Google's damned if they do and damned if the don't here: - If they don't make search AI centric, they're going to get lapped by AI-first competitors like Perplexity, OpenAI, etc. We saw many people here predict Google's pending demise from this. - If they do make search centric, they're unfairly consuming they world's content and hoarding the user traffic to themselves. Since no reasonable company is just going to st…

We are getting to watch The Innovator's Dilemma play out, yet again. The downward trajectory of Google's utility has only been worsening over the past 10 years-- but only in the last 3-4 have mainstream audiences started to notice.

The first part of that statement is valid but the second one isn't.

If anything, most of big tech has shown exceptional humility against new threats

Instagram incorporating stories (Snapchat)

YouTube incorporating Shorts (tiktok)

Google search incorporating AI Mode (perplexity et al)

This is in stark contrast to Kodak and the likes who scoffed at digital camera and phone cameras as distraction. They were sure that their ways were superior, ultimately leading to their demise.

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#136

Post by bitpush »

stefan_ wrote: post #57
spankalee wrote: post #21

Google's damned if they do and damned if the don't here: - If they don't make search AI centric, they're going to get lapped by AI-first competitors like Perplexity, OpenAI, etc. We saw many people here predict Google's pending demise from this. - If they do make search centric, they're unfairly consuming they world's content and hoarding the user traffic to themselves. Since no reasonable company is just going to st…

Spare us the "woe is me" for they literally invented replacing the publishers. Yesterday its infoboxes, today its shitty AI summaries. Which is still the case, so good riddance.

What is infobox?

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#137

Post by bitpush »

paradox460 wrote: post #64

I don't use Google anymore, and haven't in over a year (I use kagi instead) but for finding information that could be buried deep within slow, ad ridden websites, the AI and quick question features are indispensable. Things like "is game XYZ available on gamepass" or "which is state is comparable in area to germany" are good examples of this

Does Kagi have AI Mode?

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#138

Post by olyjohn »

lostmsu wrote: post #133
w-ll wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think we wont start seeing ads or paid for refs/links in those AI responses? Not defending Google here, when they turned that feature on I posted to some friends "another nail in the coffin for the web as we know it" or something to that effect.

Eventually open models will be able to do the same, so why would anyone use ad-ridden service? The first LLM provider who turns on ads on their responses will disappear in a brink.

People use, and pay for, ad-ridden services all the time. I mean, just look at Cable TV and the direction all the streaming services are going.

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#139

Post by bitpush »

lostmsu wrote: post #133
w-ll wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think we wont start seeing ads or paid for refs/links in those AI responses? Not defending Google here, when they turned that feature on I posted to some friends "another nail in the coffin for the web as we know it" or something to that effect.

Eventually open models will be able to do the same, so why would anyone use ad-ridden service? The first LLM provider who turns on ads on their responses will disappear in a brink.

Data won't be open and free for scraping in the future. And news worthy sites will ask for $$.

So nope, open models won't be a threat in the future.

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#140

Post by DidYaWipe »

What chatbots? The article talks about Google's (shitty) "AI"-generated answer summaries, but that's not a chatbot, and as far as I can see the article doesn't say where all these "chatbots" are hosted. How are people finding them?

Very disappointing for WSJ.

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