Live data from Hacker News

As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

techcrunch.com

11–20 of 112 posts

Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

#11

Is it only me who feels its incredibly unfair for publishers, that not only did big tech trained their LLMs on free content authored by these publishers, but it's also killing their future revenue. It's like stealing from someone and then making sure they never make money again.

> It's like stealing from someone and then making sure they never make money again.

isn't this the entire AI playbook?

artists, software developers, writers, musicians, everyone

total parasitism always kills the host

Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

#12
The "killing" started way before AI summary was launched, and the killing was done by the sites themselves, by turning themselves into garbage factories churning out slop (human slop!) that nobody wants to read. Look at this graph and tell me when Google AI Summary launched: https://x.com/YujieChen/status/1932566121846354228/photo/1

Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

#13

Is it only me who feels its incredibly unfair for publishers, that not only did big tech trained their LLMs on free content authored by these publishers, but it's also killing their future revenue. It's like stealing from someone and then making sure they never make money again.

Yeah and then what happens in 2026 onwards? No one's going to put in the work to create high quality original content when they can't monetize it..

Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

#14

AI kills search traffic. Yes. OTOH good search - deep research - is one of the biggest productivity gains using AI.

Until they kill off the content providers who a) rely on that traffic and b) provide the raw material for the models, of course.

Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

#15

Is it only me who feels its incredibly unfair for publishers, that not only did big tech trained their LLMs on free content authored by these publishers, but it's also killing their future revenue. It's like stealing from someone and then making sure they never make money again.

In some sense I agree.

But I also think publishers have been complicit in providing a gradually worse experience, usually through SEO, for 10+ years.

This has drowned out what most people would call "good/original content" - think small, independent bloggers.

That big publishers might lose their shirts sounds like a good thing to me.

Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

#16

Is it only me who feels its incredibly unfair for publishers, that not only did big tech trained their LLMs on free content authored by these publishers, but it's also killing their future revenue. It's like stealing from someone and then making sure they never make money again.

Let's not forget that online publishing was dead on its feet before ChatGPT ever showed up. What really killed their revenue was zero barrier to entry, combined with social media monopolizing the attention of users. Every publisher fighting for smaller and smaller shares of attention with more and more outlets, leading to a race to the bottom.

Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

#17
post #12

The "killing" started way before AI summary was launched, and the killing was done by the sites themselves, by turning themselves into garbage factories churning out slop (human slop!) that nobody wants to read. Look at this graph and tell me when Google AI Summary launched: https://x.com/YujieChen/status/1932566121846354228/photo/1

While many sites did shovel slop out the door in the name of SEO, the decline in Google search traffic is happening to all sites.

It’s a real phenomenon where search impressions and clicks, which moved roughly in tandem for many years, have started diverging rather abruptly and dramatically. It is an obvious qualitative change in Google search traffic.

Everyone is blaming the AI overviews, and they seem like the most obvious culprit. But regardless, the change in pattern is real and not correlated with site content quality.

Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

#18

Is it only me who feels its incredibly unfair for publishers, that not only did big tech trained their LLMs on free content authored by these publishers, but it's also killing their future revenue. It's like stealing from someone and then making sure they never make money again.

I'll be the voice of dissent. I don't think it's unfair.

1. I don't believe that training LLMs on publicly-available content is morally bad. Nor do I believe that it should be prosecutable as copyright infringement, any more than I believe that we should prosecute humans for studying books/art/essays/movies/etc and "downloading" that information into their brains. I'm not a big fan of IP law in general (I think it's largely a crime against the people's freedom to share and riff on ideas and expression), but to the extent that we need to bring IP law into this, I only think it should be prosecutable to publish a near-exact copy of an existing work. Creating a tool/AI capable of reproducing a Lady Gaga song is not the same thing as actually reproducing and selling a Lady Gaga song.

2. Capitalist markets depend on constant competition and innovation. This is a good thing for consumers, as things generally tend to get better and better over time (look at cars, clothing, medicine, food choices, etc). The cost comes to business owners, who are endlessly forced to compete on cost/speed/availability/value at the risk of being disrupted. As a business owner myself, I am okay with this cost and do not find it morally wrong, unfair, or reprehensible. It's for the greater good, and business owners imo are the societal group least in need of charity or prioritization. And, again, the rules help consumers. When a business is being outcompeted, that's because consumers are voting with their feet for what they think is the better option.

3. Pure artists are unaffected. If you're a craftsperson, artist, writer, chef, programmer, etc who is creating for the love of creating, that's amazing. You are unaffected. Nothing under the sun can stop you from doing what you love. If you make a great burger for yourself or your friends and family, it does not matter that McDonald's has sold a billion burgers. However, once you start trying to sell your creations to others, you are no longer purely an artist, you are a business, and you will be subject to the aforementioned rules of the market. Which, once again, I think are fair.

4. Trying to skirt the rules of the market to avoid competition or disruption, imo, is not cool. It generally amounts to rent-seeking "I got here first" behavior, which benefits no one in society except for business owners who don't want to innovate. "My profession/industry was here first, and this is how it's always been since I got into it, and I like making money this way, and it's unfair for anything to happen in the market that disrupts my flow of money or causes me to change, and I'm going to use my incumbency/popularity/authority to try to change the law to stop newcomers from out-competing me or to force them to give me a cut, consumers be damned."

It is not a tragedy for a business model that used to thrive to decline. It's a natural process that has happened many tens of thousands of times, and it's the flip side of the coin called progress.

Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

#20
This doesn't feel like it will work to me, for a few reasons:

1. A video or survey will take longer than just finding the content elsewhere. The survey is also probably more effort.

2. This breaks the "flow". The odds that I get distracted or just lose interest before the ad/survey is done is pretty high.

3. A lot of the stuff I want to read is more "passing curiosity" than "thing I have a dedicated interest in". The effort and time I'm willing to put into access is low.

The real question for me is whether Offerwall is going to make it harder to get around the paywall than previously. There are a few sites that actually send the full article, they just cover it up with an HTML element. You can still see the full text if you open the request for the content in DevTools.

Post reply on HN