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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

#81

Post by crazygringo »

byzantinegene wrote: post #29
codinhood wrote: post #22

AI seems obvious, but social video? Are they saying people watch TikToks instead of reading Wikipedia, or people who used to look things up don’t bother anymore because of TikTok?

tiktok seems to be the primary medium by which Gen Alpha obtain their news and knowledge

No it's not. It's the primary medium by which they get their entertainment.

TikTok replaces YouTube and Tumblr before that. It's not like people are watching it instead of reading history books or the New Yorker.

And just because you use TikTok doesn't mean you don't check actual news headlines or listen to two-hour-long podcasts.

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

#82

Post by selfhoster11 »

nickff wrote: post #64
al_borland wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Become self sustaining through investments so it can live for 1000 years. I always wondered why more companies or organizations didn’t do this. Pile up money during the good years to allow themselves to not need continued outside income to keep going, so they can do what is right instead of compromising their vision for the sake of hitting quarterly earnings. That isn’t to say they can’t keep making money, but do i…

If a company retains earnings, it has to pay taxes on them (as profits), but the money is still at risk (from a shareholder’s point of view) if something bad happens to the company (lawsuit or market problem). Shareholders usually want to receive whatever money the company has saved up, to safeguard it from being lost for no reason, and so that they (the shareholder) can put it to use elsewhere. This would change if…

That doesn't fully explain why this doesn't happen with non-profits.

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

#83

Post by 113 »

fart-fart-FART wrote: post #76
qingcharles wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

They also serve images.

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

#84

Post by 113 »

crazygringo wrote: post #81
byzantinegene wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tiktok seems to be the primary medium by which Gen Alpha obtain their news and knowledge

No it's not. It's the primary medium by which they get their entertainment . TikTok replaces YouTube and Tumblr before that. It's not like people are watching it instead of reading history books or the New Yorker. And just because you use TikTok doesn't mean you don't check actual news headlines or listen to two-hour-long podcasts.

The younger generation absolutely use Tiktok search to find information.

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

#85

Post by [deleted] »

113 wrote: post #84
crazygringo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. It's the primary medium by which they get their entertainment . TikTok replaces YouTube and Tumblr before that. It's not like people are watching it instead of reading history books or the New Yorker. And just because you use TikTok doesn't mean you don't check actual news headlines or listen to two-hour-long podcasts.

The younger generation absolutely use Tiktok search to find information.

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by sixtyj »

consumer451 wrote: post #69
sixtyj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right. But “era of lies” doesn’t sound nice because nobody wants to be a liar… so “post-truth” sounds better: “I'm telling the truth. Almost. But I'm not lying.”

The inevitable AI investment bubble popping is going to be a big deal, but I believe that the larger bubble of political lies popping is much more interesting to think about. What is that going to look like? How does one hedge against that eventuality?

It'll probably be a black swan anyway. So it's best to stay calm, because to hedge against it...

Stephen Emmott ends his book Ten Billion with the line "Teach my son how to use a gun."

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

#88

Post by consumer451 »

sixtyj wrote: post #87
consumer451 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inevitable AI investment bubble popping is going to be a big deal, but I believe that the larger bubble of political lies popping is much more interesting to think about. What is that going to look like? How does one hedge against that eventuality?

It'll probably be a black swan anyway. So it's best to stay calm, because to hedge against it... Stephen Emmott ends his book Ten Billion with the line "Teach my son how to use a gun."

Interesting reference. I had not heard of him, or that book from 2013. 10B is now projected to be our peak, and at 7B we have so much spare food that we burn it as automotive fuel. And now... we realize that population "collapse" is much more likely to happen than endless growth.

Obviously I have not read the book, but do you think it holds up in 2025?

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

#89

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

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…

There should be many offline copies of Wikipedia since it makes data dumps publicly available

Perhaps Wikimedia is only mentioning a drop in traffic as it suggests how www users may be gathering information, not because it is commercially significant, e.g., decline in audience for advertising

Indeed, it is okay for traffic to fall when a website is not trying sell out www users to advertisers. It does not mean the information offered by the website is any less valuable

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

#90

Post by vrindavan1 »

cm2012 wrote: post #12
qingcharles wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't it true that only around 10% of Wikipedia massive budget is used to actually run the core website? The rest goes to bloated initiatives in the Wikimedia foundations orbit.

[flagged]
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