5 ms·
A couple of years back I worked with a company which maintained specific data which was the main traffic driver on that page. Google approached them and wanted
by pflenker 5mo ago
A couple of years back I worked with a company which maintained specific data which was the main traffic driver on that page.
Google approached them and wanted to pay for the rights to get the data and display it on top of the search results, a feature which was fairly new back then.
This was an interesting dilemma because it was very clear that the money was way less than the loss in ad revenue due to traffic drop, but it was also clear that if we wouldn’t take the deal, a more desperate competitor would, which would result in the same traffic loss but without the extra google money.
So the company took the deal.
History repeats itself here, with the difference that instead of paying for the data, the ai crawlers simply take it for free.
- iamtedd 5mo agoReal-world Prisoner's Dilemma.
- jonshariat 5mo agoIt always comes back to game theory haha
- khana 5mo ago[dead]
- drcongo 5mo ago"Nice data you got there, it'd be a shame if something were to happen to it"
- vb-8448 5mo agoThe fact is that internet is already "tech giants own realm": the power is way beyond public imagination and affects all of us in real life on daily bases, but there are still people thinking they are not the "evil one" here.
- thelastgallon 5mo agoThis reminds me of Walmarts squeezing strategy with all the manufacturers. Business with us at the price we say or out of business.
- burnte 5mo agoYep, this is exactly why some companies simply don't work with Walmart.
- augzodia 5mo agoit's because both google and walmart have too much market power
- johnny_canuck 5mo agoBut ultimately that strategy is good for the consumer right? In this context, if Google is going to give me the recipe without having to scroll through the story, that seems like a win to me. The ad-revenue driven Internet of web 2.0 is finally dead and I'm not sure I'm all that sad.
- redsparrow 5mo agoWithout some way to generate revenue, people aren't going to publish recipes (for Google to scrape into their AI.) Maybe we could live without more recipes being fed into the machine, but there are many other types of content that will suffer the same fate. It would be nice to find something better than an ad-revenue driven web, but I'm not sure this is it. We'll find out I guess...
- CGamesPlay 5mo agoThat doesn't feel like a repetition at all? You said that the first time there was "traffic loss but without the extra google money", but that this time there's no extra google money either way.
- pflenker 5mo agoThe part where data providers lose traffic because their own data is displayed directly on the google premises is what repeats.
- rikschennink 5mo agoA similar dilemma presents itself when blocking AI spiders. You’re free to block them, but the websites cloning your content won’t. So either way they’ll get the content they’re after. Worse, when/if the time comes that LLMs source their claims they’ll refer you to the websites that cloned your content.
- yard2010 5mo agoThat's the problem with the current monopolistic system, the money won't go down the stream, it's like a dam. One big dam owned by a few people is worse than many small dams
- Gareth321 5mo agoI agree. For what it's worth, I think Google's business model is in trouble. They're putting in heroic effort to stay relevant during this shift to AI search, but how does their advertising model work when people expect summarised and accurate information instead of scrolling pages of ads? The search space is actually not that unhealthy. There are competitors. They just lack the reach of Google. These competitor will become increasingly useful when our personal AIs plug into them to search for the right info. That said, I think the old internet business model is dying. Why will people write articles and pay for hosting if they can't receive any advertising revenue? I think I'm okay with this. Before advertising decimated the free internet, people ran sites for fun. Maybe we return to that.
- sandworm101 5mo ago>> but how does their advertising model work when people expect summarised and accurate information instead of scrolling pages of ads? 1) because that fancy summarised results page will effectively be the ad. The results will push you towards google's partner sites or promote behavior benificial to them. 2) because partners may soon be able to pay to change the results of searches. Who won an election 20 years ago? That "fact" from the AI could depend on which answer has been sponsored by which political interest. What happened in china in 1989 ... how much money do you have? 3) the user becomes the product. No ads in search results, but our searches and online behavior tracked by them will be sold to whoever is most interested in what we do online.
- b112 5mo agoHanging my comment here, not blaming the parent poster, it's just relevant... All the "AI search" I've tried is far less relevant than a proper search, using search engines without it seems much faster and more relevant. Whenever I get AI search results, its summaries lack substance, are often just plain wrong, and so on. When I check, it's often usong the wrong aggregate data to return results. Search engines these days, traditional ones, have been hobbled by targeting the lowest common denominator. They drop search terms, alias them (eg, Joe=Joseph,Josephene, Jodiene), and thus return endless bad results. Using "web" search on Google, for example, putting all search terms in quotes, helps enormously. If searching for Joe Baker, you don't want aliased responses. My point is, AI is yet another abstracted layer. It not only aliases things, it halucinates, and further, it doesn't even show the context it simply summarizes. It's the next layer of crappiness. As a side note, there os a product in my home country called the Swiffer. It is like a broom, but uses disposable sticky paper instead of broom bristles and a scoop. Point is, it isn't very environmentally friendly. I weirdly see environmentalists using it, instead of just a good old broom. And now I see environmentalists using AI for search. What? Why! The sheer additional power and cost, all the new datacenters, hardware, just for what?? Even of one believes it is mildly better (which it isn't, if you use traditional search properly), are you now replacing your broom with a swiffer?! The amount of environmentalism that goes out the window, for convenience, astonishes me.
- ozim 5mo agoThen we go and pay to Cloudeflare or other cloud providers you host sites with to prevent Google from scraping. Let the big guys fight it out. There is money in protecting the websites. If you host with OVH they are interested in you making money so you can pay them.
- arisAlexis 5mo agoOk but how would people find your website then
- chadgpt3 5mo agoThis won't work because Google just pays Cloudflare to enable scraping.
- altmanaltman 5mo agoBut like why would anyone make original content or websites anymore if google actively works to ensure you make no money
- lexlambda 5mo agoWhy? To sell you something. If the traditional web incentives were to disappear, the internet will become just ads, selling things & work. The web won't die. It will just become even more commercialized than it already is. You might recognize most of the things listed. Selling things: Restaurants, hotels, local businesses; Ads: more of the same Work: a) Projects people collaborate on and need to share information b) Writing articles to boost a resume And maybe sharing what people do, they do it for free, see social media.
- Yizahi 5mo agoOh the joys of the free market. At least Google didn't have to suffer any red tape or taxes, and we all should deeply care about Google's suffering.
- ABCLAW 5mo ago>History repeats itself here, with the difference that instead of paying for the data, the ai crawlers simply take it for free. This discussion was broached originally when discussing whether or not search engines and aggregators had any compensation obligation in respect of news articles. This was a hot topic in the IP and policy circles for a few years. When the Canadian government attempted to create a mechanism to compensate content creators for the scraped content, there was widespread outrage from tech circles, despite the same community agreeing, across extensive policy discussions, that action had to be taken to prevent this universal man-in-the-middle value capture by search engines. I've had fairly extensive discussion with the individuals involved in the academic, policy and internal industry analysis of the issue. Watching industry agree to address the issue, then aggressively spend to shape public narratives in public was eye opening. The recent shift into "AI is obviously going to hoover up all your data and there's nothing you can do now that the theft is laundered through an LLM" is just the latest example of the same trend of short sighted capital-over-everything decision making we've become used to in jurisdictions that have dysfunctional legislatures.