Google really is braindrained if the best thing they can come up with is to rebrand pop ups.
Let’s not forget Google was sleeping on AI and it still is. They were ahead at some point but didnt know what to do with it.
As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue
41–50 of 112 posts
Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue
#42Is 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 not unfair it's content theft at an industrial scale.
Edit:
Those how are downvoting me probably haver never spent a week writing an article or blog post.
Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue
#43I can already see how this plays out, it falls flat, the increasing decline in search coincides with industry wide realisation LLMs still can’t achieve AGI, this sets alarm bells ringing, they offer a new system for advertisers to promote content via the AI responses since now “it’s just glorified search”
Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it's unfair. It's digital colonialism. What's sad is that other companies keep falling for the false narrative that big tech monopolies act as partners and not the blood sucking leeches they've become to represent.
Competition in the free market is not colonialism. The capitalistic marketplace is meant to involve disruption. That's the entire point: new companies come along and out-compete and out-innovate older companies and business models. The consumer wins. This is not the same as invading countries and subjugating the inhabitants, who have a human right to a peaceful life. No business in a capitalistic marketplace has a "r…
What new companies? Google is a monopoly, along with most other major tech platforms. When a handful of corporations control entire market sectors and actively acquire or crush potential competitors, that's not free market competition, that's market consolidation that prevents the very disruption you're describing. The "creative destruction" of capitalism requires actual competition to exist, not just the theoretical possibility of it.
Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue
#45They re going to have to do more than this. They can surely make an AI that determines which % of the LLM answer is owed to which website / source. Then either pay them ad revenue or demand the user to pay to see the rest of the answer. I don't often click on AI answers, and i assume most people don't. I find myself clicking beyond it only when the answer is bad.
If google doesn't do that, publishers will respond in a vicious way, like purposely poisoning content to mislead their LLMs.
Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue
#46[deleted]
Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it's unfair. It's digital colonialism. What's sad is that other companies keep falling for the false narrative that big tech monopolies act as partners and not the blood sucking leeches they've become to represent.
The choices given are to die today or die tomorrow, no wonder most are accepting whatever money they can get.
AI is nothing without them if it becomes a zero sum business I guess AI tech companies are going to have to become publishers. That would be no good at all as democracy needs many varied voices!
Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue
#48[deleted]
Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue
#49The "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…
I know that I've stopped using Google's search primarily because it's been intentionally[1] made a worse tool. The AI overviews sound obnoxious and I'm not surprised if they're driving more people off of the platform.
I don't know what the hell is going on over there, but the systemic issues and awful decisions I see coming out of Alphabet companies in recent years paints a picture of suicidal levels of hubris at the c-suite level. The boards need to pull their heads out of their asses, otherwise incompetence is going to sink that ship before 2040.
[1] - https://jackyan.com/blog/2023/09/google-search-is-worse-by-d...
Re: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue
#50AI kills search traffic. Yes. OTOH good search - deep research - is one of the biggest productivity gains using AI.
Using AI to do research almost seems worse than citing wikipedia as a reference.