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They want to capture more of the value that was previously going to others. That's basically what this has all been leading to. Why let a cooking website get vi
by mrdependable 4mo ago
They want to capture more of the value that was previously going to others. That's basically what this has all been leading to. Why let a cooking website get visitors and ad revenue when they are free to take the content and show it as their own? Now they are going to do the same to e-commerce. Either they are going to let customers buy their products through Google's interface, or they won't be discovered. No more ownership of the customer relationship. Stores will be a backend warehouse and manufacturer now with Google taking a percentage of all profits.
- georgeecollins 4mo agoExactly! They also have been letting the results of google search get seriously degraded by ads. Would many people prefer AI over google search circa 2010? They killed their competition and now they will give you the product that gives them the most money.
- strifey 4mo agoThis has been their MO with their search for a decade+ now. "Native" results hiding actual search results below the fold killed many 2010s era websites that relied on search traffic.
- jeltz 4mo agoIt is the same thing as when they pushed for AMP. They wanted to prevent traffic from leaving google.com then too.
- dpkirchner 4mo agoIn that case at least they could point out that end users got better results with AMP than they do with news sites w/o ad blockers. The AI results are just wrong so often I don't really get it.
- pluc 4mo agoThe results are not wrong, they are AI. Google wants that to become a distinct thing that is neither. What's a better answer for Google than one that generates more usage? If we all push in the same direction we can make AI work, we just need to accept we will need to hold its hand for a while.
- Forgeties79 4mo agoI think this is sarcastic but man some people really do have some wild defenses for LLM’s so I can’t be sure lol
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> The AI results are just wrong so often I don't really get it They believe they won’t be wrong for long.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- eithed 4mo ago> Why let a cooking website get visitors and ad revenue when they are free to take the content and show it as their own? I think this is a step beyond that - why should people be creating cooking websites when you can ask LLM how to cook given thing, while indeed, serving their own ads. It's the continuation of "we own content other people produce" policy
- alberto467 4mo agoYou can also tell the LLM exactly what you have in the fridge or what allergies you have and get customized recipes. It’s just a better experience, 2026 is rough for a recipe site.
- leereeves 4mo ago> You can also tell the LLM exactly what you have in the fridge or what allergies you have and get customized recipes. Can you really though? Are the results delicious? I've never tried that.
- hilariously 4mo agoIt's worse than you think, many recipe sites do not taste test their stuff at all, and often have very stupid instructions. That being said, an LLM can give creative ideas, mix and match components, but you should not trust the details at all.
- ben_w 4mo agoCase in point, when "minced meat" and "mincemeat" were mixed up: https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/09/american-website-includes-actual-beef-mince-pie-recipe-described-abomination-11584126/ https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/09/american-website-includes-act...
- shakow 4mo agoDamn, TIL. Now “Operation Mincemeat” seems less macabre.
- 866-RON-0-FEZ 4mo agoMaybe it's high time to burn it all down. Block Googlebot from your sites. Let's go back to webrings.
- xp84 4mo agoIt's certainly long been clear that Google is phasing out even the idea that they serve end-users "links" to other websites. They're just refining the idea and making it more and more explicit. It absolutely places them in an obviously adversarial position to every single other website on the Internet, and anyone who continues to cooperate with Google today is probably handing Google the tools to put them out of business. Unfortunately, whole generations of people have grown up learning that the safest and easiest way to navigate to a website is to type some version of the brand into their browser (which Google likely owns outright) and click the first thing Google spits back, so Google enters this battle holding most of the cards :(
- throwaway27448 4mo agoWhy would anyone go to google anymore tho? If it doesn't furnish results it's just a chatbot
- c7b 4mo agoI would assume that they've A/B-tested any such important change extensively and basically know that it won't affect their numbers for the worse.
- throwaway27448 4mo agoGiven my own time at google, I highly doubt these a/b tests are constructed to actually yield a better product rather than push pet products
- c7b 4mo agoThen we should take your word over mine. My assumption was that those A/B tests will lead to products that do increase the numbers they were measuring (retention, conversion,...) at the expense of enshittified UX (up to the point of things feeling objectively broken, like notification badges re-appearing for the same items, settings that reset after user changes, search results missing,...). At least that was my explanation for how products by major tech giants like LinkedIn, Facebook, Outlook,... could end up being shipped with such flaws. What would you say?
- worik 4mo ago"Greed is bad"
- jackp96 4mo agoAlso — it's objectively a better search product to give users what they're looking for right away. Though that's not to say they're acting altruisticly here. Google seems to be racing toward a new dark pattern where users learn to trust rely on the AI for neutral, smart objectively correct answers — which boosts trust in its sponsored product recommendations. Super gross.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]