4 ms·

You have control over what you use to search the web, but you don't have control over the incentives of publishers, the content of which google used to get big

by treve 1y ago

You have control over what you use to search the web, but you don't have control over the incentives of publishers, the content of which google used to get big and monetize and is now cannibalizing.

ninth_ant 1y ago
That’s a fair assessment. If the intent of the article was to say that Google is creating an environment which incentivizes publishers to lock away content from scrapers, then that’s probably correct in the medium and long term. But I feel like the market described as being cannibalized here was already in the throes of death thanks to blogspam SEO. For many information categories, in my experience AI results are quite a bit better than the top-ranked results. And typically for those types of results you want to quickly shuffle off general web search into something more specific like Wikipedia or a site with domain expertise.
- bsder 1y ago
  > in my experience AI results are quite a bit better than the top-ranked results. Only because the AI results haven't been infested with ads ... yet. As soon as the VC lottery stops, the ads will get injected and the AI stuff will quickly go just as bad.
  - WorldMaker 1y ago
    LLMs read like ad copy even when they aren't ads. LLMs presumably trained on a ton of ad copy. A lot of ad copy is considered "public domain". Aren't the ads already injected and the real trick will be getting the advertisers to foot more of the bill? I half believe Gemini already has an "AdSense billing model" in the works.
    - bsder 1y ago
      > Aren't the ads already injected and the real trick will be getting the advertisers to foot more of the bill? No, the ads aren't specifically injected. Yet. When you start finding LLMs that call all sodas "Pepsi", you will know the ads have arrived. (Side note: I avoided using "Coke" because there are already certain sections of the US where all sodas are referred to as "Coke".)
      - bookofjoe 1y ago
        or "pop": https://archive.nytimes.com/ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/the-soda-vs-pop-map/ https://archive.nytimes.com/ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/...

by treve 1y ago

You have control over what you use to search the web, but you don't have control over the incentives of publishers, the content of which google used to get big and monetize and is now cannibalizing.

ninth_ant 1y ago

That’s a fair assessment. If the intent of the article was to say that Google is creating an environment which incentivizes publishers to lock away content from scrapers, then that’s probably correct in the medium and long term. But I feel like the market described as being cannibalized here was already in the throes of death thanks to blogspam SEO. For many information categories, in my experience AI results are quite a bit better than the top-ranked results. And typically for those types of results you want to quickly shuffle off general web search into something more specific like Wikipedia or a site with domain expertise.

bsder 1y ago
> in my experience AI results are quite a bit better than the top-ranked results. Only because the AI results haven't been infested with ads ... yet. As soon as the VC lottery stops, the ads will get injected and the AI stuff will quickly go just as bad.
- WorldMaker 1y ago
  LLMs read like ad copy even when they aren't ads. LLMs presumably trained on a ton of ad copy. A lot of ad copy is considered "public domain". Aren't the ads already injected and the real trick will be getting the advertisers to foot more of the bill? I half believe Gemini already has an "AdSense billing model" in the works.
  - bsder 1y ago
    > Aren't the ads already injected and the real trick will be getting the advertisers to foot more of the bill? No, the ads aren't specifically injected. Yet. When you start finding LLMs that call all sodas "Pepsi", you will know the ads have arrived. (Side note: I avoided using "Coke" because there are already certain sections of the US where all sodas are referred to as "Coke".)
    - bookofjoe 1y ago
      or "pop": https://archive.nytimes.com/ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/the-soda-vs-pop-map/ https://archive.nytimes.com/ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/...