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Traffic numbers, regardless if it using reader mode or not, are used as a basic valuation of a website or page. This is why Alexa rankings have historically bee

by alt227 2y ago

Traffic numbers, regardless if it using reader mode or not, are used as a basic valuation of a website or page. This is why Alexa rankings have historically been so important. If Perplexity visit the site once and cache some info to give to multiple users, that is stealing traffic numbers for ad value, but also taking away the ability from the site owner to get realistic ideas of how many people are using the information on their site. Additionally, this is AI we are talking about. Whos to say that the genrated summary of information is actually correct? The only way to confirm that, or to get the correct information in the first place, is to read the original site yourself.

itsoktocry 2y ago
>Traffic numbers, regardless if it using reader mode or not, is used as a basic valuation of a website. I have another comment that says something similar, but: is valuing a website based on basic traffic still a thing? Feels very 2002. It's not my wheelhouse, but if I happened to be involved in a transaction, raw traffic numbers wouldn't hold much sway.
- BeefWellington 2y ago
  If you were considering acquiring a business that had a billion pageviews a month versus 10 pageviews a month, you don't think that would affect the sale price?
Zambyte 2y ago
> The only way to confirm that, or to get the correct information in the first place, is to read the original site yourself. As someone who uses Perplexity, I often do do this. And I don't think I'm particularly in the minority with this. I think their UI encourages it.
- zenlikethat 2y ago
  Yeah that's one of the best things about them for me. And then I go to the website and often it's some janky UI with content buried super deep. Or it's like Reddit and I immediately get slammed with login walls and a million annoying pop ups. So I'm quite grateful to have an ability to cut through the noise and non-consistency of the wild west web. I agree the idea that we're somewhat killing traffic to the organic web is kind of sad. But at the same time I still go to the source material a lot, and it enables me to bounce more easily when the website is a bit hostile. I wonder if it would be slightly less sad if we all had our own decentralized crawlers that simply functioned as extensions of ourselves.
  - Zambyte 2y ago
    > I wonder if it would be slightly less sad if we all had our own decentralized crawlers that simply functioned as extensions of ourselves. This is something I'm (slowly) working on myself. I have a local language model server and 30 tb usable storage ready to go, just working on the software :)
semi 2y ago
The inaccuracy point is particularly problematic as either they cite you as the source despite possibly warping your content to be incorrect.. or they don't cite you and more directly steal the content. I'm not sure which is worse

by alt227 2y ago

itsoktocry 2y ago

>Traffic numbers, regardless if it using reader mode or not, is used as a basic valuation of a website. I have another comment that says something similar, but: is valuing a website based on basic traffic still a thing? Feels very 2002. It's not my wheelhouse, but if I happened to be involved in a transaction, raw traffic numbers wouldn't hold much sway.

BeefWellington 2y ago
If you were considering acquiring a business that had a billion pageviews a month versus 10 pageviews a month, you don't think that would affect the sale price?

Zambyte 2y ago

> The only way to confirm that, or to get the correct information in the first place, is to read the original site yourself. As someone who uses Perplexity, I often do do this. And I don't think I'm particularly in the minority with this. I think their UI encourages it.

zenlikethat 2y ago
Yeah that's one of the best things about them for me. And then I go to the website and often it's some janky UI with content buried super deep. Or it's like Reddit and I immediately get slammed with login walls and a million annoying pop ups. So I'm quite grateful to have an ability to cut through the noise and non-consistency of the wild west web. I agree the idea that we're somewhat killing traffic to the organic web is kind of sad. But at the same time I still go to the source material a lot, and it enables me to bounce more easily when the website is a bit hostile. I wonder if it would be slightly less sad if we all had our own decentralized crawlers that simply functioned as extensions of ourselves.
- Zambyte 2y ago
  > I wonder if it would be slightly less sad if we all had our own decentralized crawlers that simply functioned as extensions of ourselves. This is something I'm (slowly) working on myself. I have a local language model server and 30 tb usable storage ready to go, just working on the software :)

semi 2y ago

The inaccuracy point is particularly problematic as either they cite you as the source despite possibly warping your content to be incorrect.. or they don't cite you and more directly steal the content. I'm not sure which is worse