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Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

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Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#71

Post by sys_64738 »

arunharidas wrote: post #41
aeternum wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need Wikipedia competitors. Wikipedia is a victim of it's own success, it was excellent at avoiding bias for quite awhile and the vast majority of articles are extremely well written. However it's massive popularity and dominance have also led to, well this guy put it best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_...

Elon Musk is launching Grokipedia this week as a competition to Wikipedia.

LOL I just tried to search "U2" on it but it sent me to a Twitter post. That Twitter post required me to login to see if I wanted to see it. What a joke.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#72

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

arunharidas wrote: post #41
aeternum wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need Wikipedia competitors. Wikipedia is a victim of it's own success, it was excellent at avoiding bias for quite awhile and the vast majority of articles are extremely well written. However it's massive popularity and dominance have also led to, well this guy put it best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_...

Elon Musk is launching Grokipedia this week as a competition to Wikipedia.

Ah yes, launched by the guy who keeps tweaking his own chatbot because it doesnt barf out the lies he wants it to tell.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#73

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

aeternum wrote: post #39
irjustin wrote: post #3

I'll go out on a limb and say we _need_ Wikipedia and it's okay that traffic falls. Physical print encyclopedias got replaced by Wikipedia, but AI isn't a replacement (can't ever see how either). While AI is a method of easier access for the end user, the purpose of Wikipedia stands on its own. I've always scoffed at the Wikimedia Foundation's warchest and continuously increasing annual spending. I say now is the tim…

I think we need Wikipedia competitors. Wikipedia is a victim of it's own success, it was excellent at avoiding bias for quite awhile and the vast majority of articles are extremely well written. However it's massive popularity and dominance have also led to, well this guy put it best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_...

Wikipedia is fine. Bias cant be avoided, only made explicit, and the fact that you think it can means you should probably move to Conservapedia or whatever slop Musk will release.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#74

Post by DanOpcode »

hackyhacky wrote: post #21
RickJWagner wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for me. Wikipedia had its day, in between print encyclopedias and quick query AI. Its place in history is now set. Something else will come along soon enough.

Without Wikipedia, where will AIs get their (factual) training data? Reddit?

Torrented books

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#75

Post by Kye »

AstroBen wrote: post #31
Kye wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is full of the kind of stuff mainstream payment processors balk at, so they might have to use a higher risk processor with higher fees.

Don't you think their brand recognition would be an easy way around that?

No. Why would a payment processor make an exception to its risk-based rules for an organization that increases exposure to that risk? Brand recognition is a liability in this case.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#76

Post by fart-fart-FART »

qingcharles wrote: post #6
crmd wrote: post #2

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is not dependent on web traffic for revenue, is a decline in traffic necessarily bad? I always assumed the need for metastatic growth was limited to VC-backed and ad-revenue dependent companies.

They are highly dependent on web traffic for revenue. And their costs are even increasing because while human viewers are decreasing they are getting hugged to death by AI scrapes.

[flagged]

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#77

Post by Fade_Dance »

redwall_hp wrote: post #66
al_borland wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” I recently visited Scotland and on a visit to a distillery they mentioned they bought land in the US to grow trees that will make their barrels one day. The trees take over 100 years to grow (if I remember correctly). How is it we can invest ~200 years into a glass of scotch, yet we aren’t willing to take the same care and…

Craftsmen care about what they make, pursuing excellence even if it may take generations. Businessmen care about robbing you now in the most efficient way.

There is also an element of tradition with scotch, which is something that can survive even the occasional craftsman who may not care as much about what they do, as long as they respect the traditions.

Humans don't live that long, and there's a constant onslaught of fleeting fancies, especially in business (Wikipedia foundation should buy some crypto for it's treasury!)

Tradition is simply brand value to be monetized for most businessmen (to add to your criticism). Just look at scotch whisky and multinational conglomerate acquisitions. They would never plant trees in America, they simply order giant vats used for the strongest PX Sherry to get maximum flavor per euro for their blending process.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#78

Post by crazygringo »

AstroBen wrote: post #18
crmd wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is their revenue traffic-dependent?

Their traffic is potential donations Something tells me a person is way less likely to donate if they're consuming the content through an LLM middleman

I don't know -- as I said in another comment, my Wikipedia usage has gone down 90% thanks to LLMs.

But that means I'm still using it. Especially for more reference stuff like lists of episodes, filmographies, etc. As well as equations, math techniques, etc.

If you're the kind of person who donates to Wikipedia, you're probably still using it some even if less, and continue to recognize its importance. Possibly even more, as a kind of collaboratively-edited authority like Wikipedia only becomes more important as AI "slop" becomes more prevalent across blogs etc.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#79

Post by crazygringo »

intended wrote: post #65
crmd wrote: post #2

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is not dependent on web traffic for revenue, is a decline in traffic necessarily bad? I always assumed the need for metastatic growth was limited to VC-backed and ad-revenue dependent companies.

The warning sign is not traffic for ads, although this will result in a drop in donations eventually. It means that now, people are paying for their AI subscriptions, while they don’t see Wikipedia at all. The primary source is being intermediated - which is the opposite of what the net was supposed to achieve. This is the piracy argument, except this time its not little old ladies doing it, but massive for profit fi…

> It means that now, people are paying for their AI subscriptions

Most people are not paying a cent. And the people that are, are paying for stuff like coding assistance or classification, not the kind of info you get on Wikipedia.

Looking up Wikipedia-style information on LLM's is not a driving factor in paid subscriptions to ChatGPT etc.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#80

Post by croon »

Gigachad wrote: post #40
d--b wrote: post #25

traffic falling means wikipedia will be cheaper to run. since they don’t rely on ads, it’d likely not affecting their revenues either (assuming those who don’t use it anymore weren’5 those givîng to it)

It’s probably not good long term for donations or attracting future editors. Possibly less people interested in editing when it becomes more unpaid work for AI companies than actually serving real viewers.

If I may speculate I would assume that the Venn diagram between people moving from wikipedia consumer to tiktok and AI generally don't overlap much with people prone to contribute or donate to wikipedia, so I'm not certain it's a net loss in that regard.
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