2 ms·

What did you expect from a centralized platform? They will monetize all of your content without thinking twice

by udev4096 2y ago

gruez 2y ago
...as opposed to non-centralized platforms that certainly won't be scraped by AI companies?
- tivert 2y ago
  > ...as opposed to non-centralized platforms that certainly won't be scraped by AI companies? You could avoid the scraping by requiring login or maybe having some continuously generated AI noise requiring social context filter out that a scraper wouldn't have (e.g. a bot in a chatroom that spews garbage that everyone knows to put in their killfile).
  - gruez 2y ago
    >You could avoid the scraping by requiring login This is easily bypassed by having some sort of pattern matching sign-up script (because realistically, everyone is going to be using an off-the-shelf solution like wordpresss which you can detect and write scripts for) and paying a captcha solving farm to solve any captchas for you. Practically speaking though, having a signup wall is going to be killer for getting visits. It's already hard enough as it is to get started as an independent writer/blogger with no sign up wall. If you're going to force people to log in as well all that will do is ensure your posts are read by no one. >or maybe having some continuously generated AI noise requiring social context filter out that a scraper wouldn't have (e.g. a bot in a chatroom that spews garbage that everyone knows to put in their killfile). Similar problem to the above. Why would someone want to join your community when the first thing they see is that it has a spam problem that's seemingly unaddressed?
    - tivert 2y ago
      >> You could avoid the scraping by requiring login > This is easily bypassed by having some sort of pattern matching sign-up script I would imagine it's not that easy. At a minimum you could have captchas, and if those stop working you could always add some other friction (like a nominal payment for an account, a la Metafilter). > Similar problem to the above. Why would someone want to join your community when the first thing they see is that it has a spam problem that's seemingly unaddressed? Because they understand the reason, and there emerges some common understanding that's something you need to do to discourage scraping?
      - gruez 2y ago
        >Because they understand the reason, and there emerges some common understanding that's something you need to do to discourage scraping? The only way I can see this working out is in some sort of author's forum, where everyone there are personally affected by LLM training and therefore they're willing to put up with the barriers. The same can't said be true for the average reader, or even most readers. They're far less to care about their artistic/literary livelihoods being killed by AI, and as we seen with how popular Amazon and Uber is despite their treatment of their delivery "partners", even if they're sympathetic to you that's no guarantee that they'll support you at their inconvenience. The overwhelming majority of readers is going to hit your signup/pay-wall and bounce, which means all you're doing is kneecapping your reach in exchange for a bit of smugness against AI companies.
        tivert 2y ago
        > a bit of smugness against AI companies Huh? I don't think "smug" is an appropriate word to use there. One isn't smug for not wanting to get exploited. If anything's smug, it's this sense that AI companies should get whatever they want and everyone just and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

What did you expect from a centralized platform? They will monetize all of your content without thinking twice

gruez 2y ago

...as opposed to non-centralized platforms that certainly won't be scraped by AI companies?

tivert 2y ago
> ...as opposed to non-centralized platforms that certainly won't be scraped by AI companies? You could avoid the scraping by requiring login or maybe having some continuously generated AI noise requiring social context filter out that a scraper wouldn't have (e.g. a bot in a chatroom that spews garbage that everyone knows to put in their killfile).
- gruez 2y ago
  >You could avoid the scraping by requiring login This is easily bypassed by having some sort of pattern matching sign-up script (because realistically, everyone is going to be using an off-the-shelf solution like wordpresss which you can detect and write scripts for) and paying a captcha solving farm to solve any captchas for you. Practically speaking though, having a signup wall is going to be killer for getting visits. It's already hard enough as it is to get started as an independent writer/blogger with no sign up wall. If you're going to force people to log in as well all that will do is ensure your posts are read by no one. >or maybe having some continuously generated AI noise requiring social context filter out that a scraper wouldn't have (e.g. a bot in a chatroom that spews garbage that everyone knows to put in their killfile). Similar problem to the above. Why would someone want to join your community when the first thing they see is that it has a spam problem that's seemingly unaddressed?
  - tivert 2y ago
    >> You could avoid the scraping by requiring login > This is easily bypassed by having some sort of pattern matching sign-up script I would imagine it's not that easy. At a minimum you could have captchas, and if those stop working you could always add some other friction (like a nominal payment for an account, a la Metafilter). > Similar problem to the above. Why would someone want to join your community when the first thing they see is that it has a spam problem that's seemingly unaddressed? Because they understand the reason, and there emerges some common understanding that's something you need to do to discourage scraping?
    - gruez 2y ago
      >Because they understand the reason, and there emerges some common understanding that's something you need to do to discourage scraping? The only way I can see this working out is in some sort of author's forum, where everyone there are personally affected by LLM training and therefore they're willing to put up with the barriers. The same can't said be true for the average reader, or even most readers. They're far less to care about their artistic/literary livelihoods being killed by AI, and as we seen with how popular Amazon and Uber is despite their treatment of their delivery "partners", even if they're sympathetic to you that's no guarantee that they'll support you at their inconvenience. The overwhelming majority of readers is going to hit your signup/pay-wall and bounce, which means all you're doing is kneecapping your reach in exchange for a bit of smugness against AI companies.
      - tivert 2y ago
        > a bit of smugness against AI companies Huh? I don't think "smug" is an appropriate word to use there. One isn't smug for not wanting to get exploited. If anything's smug, it's this sense that AI companies should get whatever they want and everyone just and there's nothing anyone can do about it.