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It harms the publishers and creators that actually built those sites that Google is extracting results from by costing them traffic and discouraging additional
by shortformblog 2y ago
It harms the publishers and creators that actually built those sites that Google is extracting results from by costing them traffic and discouraging additional clicks. Over time, that discourages the quality of search results by depressing the market for new search-based information generated by humans.
To me, that’s a pretty good reason to stop using it, no matter if you “like” it.
- fragmede 2y agoBut that was already true prior to the ai generated words at the top of the search results, and was a thing Google was fighting with publishers about.
- shortformblog 2y agoThat just means it’s doubly true. The &udm=14 workaround also removes the featured snippets that discouraged Google’s role as a partner to publishers.
- zoky 2y agoOkay, so how does it do that exactly? As I said, I’m still clicking through, just as I was when all Google gave me was a text extract of each link. What’s the difference now? If anything, I’m more likely to click through, because I trust the AI summary less than the text extract. So it seems like AI is actually driving traffic in this case, rather than diverting it.
- shortformblog 2y agoYou are just one person with one set of habits. Google serves hundreds of millions of people daily, and the benefits publishers traditionally received from Google are in aggregate.
- zoky 2y agoOkay… so? Why should I use or not use something on the basis of how you think other people might use it?
- shortformblog 2y agoBecause publishers are telling you that it harms their business and you, as an individual who looks at the bigger picture, want to do the right thing. Or you can just go for personal convenience. You do you.
- zoky 2y agoPublishers also told me that Napster was destroying their business. And before that, VCRs. Public libraries too, for that matter. Do you always believe what publishers tell you?
- shortformblog 2y agoI’m a publisher. I am telling you this, personally.
- lnxg33k1 2y agoI feel not sure about the harmful nature of AI generated content, yes, it can be harmful for content farms, but I've always chosen to go deeper in arguments I was interested in, bringing traffic, because in the end, those responses are just overviews, so let's hope that AI will kill content farms once and for all