Thought experiment: imagine Google stopped sending users to articles you write and instead regurgitated and showed your content directly, with ads or for pay.

Thought experiment: imagine Google stopped sending users to articles you write and instead regurgitated and showed your content directly, with ads or for pay. Fast forward a few years and you have no more audience, no one has to know you exist, you ghost write for a magic black box that people ask questions and throw money at. When you want to impress a new friend and mention you published some interesting niche research (e.g., how to repair a thing) they skeptically nod because in their head no one does it anymore, the black box has all the answers. Will you still be feeling motivated to altruistically share content tomorrow?