upvote

points

by SoftTalker10 hours ago |
comments
upvoteby BrunoBernardino9 hours ago|
next
[-]
Alternatively, we can collectively "fight back" by not using Google and teaching others around us to do so as well. There are plenty of decent [1] and great (better) alternatives, where you're not the product [2]!

[1]: https://alternativeto.net/software/google-search/?license=fr...

[2]: https://alternativeto.net/software/google-search/?license=co...

reply
upvoteby buo6 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
I can recommend https://noai.duckduckgo.com. It works pretty well.
reply
upvoteby dyauspitr2 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
Fighting back is stupid, these things are inevitable, and honestly probably for the best over the long-term.
reply
upvoteby krige29 minutes ago|
parent|
[-]
Nothing is inevitable, and long-term effects of google's move are unknowable.
reply
upvoteby lyu072829 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
There is actually another way that was just hinted at a few days ago demonstrated by the EU courts reaffirming a law from 2019 against Meta, just force google et al to compensate publishers:

https://www.epceurope.eu/post/epc-welcomes-landmark-cjeu-rul...

reply
upvoteby carlosjobim8 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
That translates to "Force Google to give money to these specific organizations and newspapers which EU leaders wish to benefit". It won't help any individuals who has made great websites with important and popular information.
reply
upvoteby 7 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
deleted
reply
upvoteby lyu072823 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
Well that's just an example, You could mandate an API to allow bots pay their fair share; could ban google from using content it stole without compensation; could shatter google into a thousand pieces.. There are music rights organizations with small time artists to huge celebrities, they are strong organizations that collect revenue from big platforms and redistribute it to all artists as well. Lots and lots of ways to address this problem.

My appeal is just to realize that our implicit assumption that we can't do anything ever at all besides appealing to completely ineffectual individual action is in and of itself a strongly ideological and politically radical position to take.

reply
upvoteby ben_w9 hours ago|
prev|
next
[-]
> Websites will die on the vine if LLMs intermediate all the content.

The current zeitgeist of them will, but I think not all.

My first website (GeoCities) was either before Google existed or very close to it. Connected to people via WebRings and directory listings. More recently, RSS feeds.

reply
upvoteby SoftTalker9 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
Yeah there will likely continue be a small underground of old-style websites I guess. But you'll have to be in the loop on how to find them, and very few people will pay to advertise on them.
reply
upvoteby mrec9 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
> very few people will pay to advertize on them

That sounds like an unalloyed plus. The perverse incentives caused by advertising have been the biggest driver of the web's decline, IMO.

reply
upvoteby LetsGetTechnicl10 hours ago|
prev|
next
[-]
That sounds like absolute hell
reply
upvoteby abirch9 hours ago|
prev|
next
[-]
Here is what I think the future web may look like:

   1) Sites will have mcp / APIs for LLMs. So that when I ask my AI Agent du jour. It can call any of the sites where I have subscriptions for information. 
   2) Sites that are passion projects will be harvested by our LLM overlords.
   3) Sites that people don't type into their web browser and need ad revenue will die.
   4) SEO will finally die.
reply
upvoteby latexr8 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
> SEO will finally die.

On the contrary, it will flourish. It’s just that it’ll shift to whatever can trick LLMs into recommending your product.

https://www.anthropic.com/research/small-samples-poison

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260218-i-hacked-chatgpt...

reply
upvoteby thisisit9 hours ago|
prev|
[-]
Or more likely move towards substack or newsletters where the pitch is - Don’t let the LLM chose the output for you, go directly to our Substack/newsletter instead.

This will happen especially with things like conspiracy theories because the choice might be to pollute the output or share the general consensus. Like searches for Apollo landing conspiracy theories can either chose to present “alternate facts” so that people can “do their own research” and conclude it is fake or LLM auto corrects to “Apollo landing happened”.

reply
upvoteby rchaud6 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
Newsletters have a webview fallback with a public URL that makes them just as susceptible to scraping. If that ever gets fixed, Google will just scrape the full-text content in Gmail instead.

Newsletters have been around forever and never taken off like the open web and free blogging have. Slapping a Stripe integration on the backend hasn't led to Substack becoming a sustainable business not propped up by VC cash.

reply
upvoteby SoftTalker8 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
The truth is out there!
reply