I predict that LLMs will kill off search engines, taking blogspam with them. Blogspam has been steadily eroding the value of search results for decades, choking out genuine websites like garden overrun with weeds. When people finally stop using search engines entirely all of those blogspam sites will cease to be profitable, unable to even pay for their hosting, they’ll disappear from the internet.
Google started out noble, but was poisoned by its own success and by extension, poisoned everything it touched. The web, as a platform, is nearly dead. Walled garden phone apps are almost completely dominate. The revenue model is on such shaky ground that almost all remaining websites either went clickbait with a pox of ads or paywall. I would not be able to list more than 5 websites that survived Ads and SEO, perhaps only Wikipedia.
These LLMs will be the end. They will capture enough of the user attention that the few remaining ad supported sites will be wiped out. “Content”, that low quality grist every site is filled with to capture users for a few seconds before they click on will become worthless, no different than the low quality crap the LLMs spew out.
Finally, we will stop trying to keep the bloated corpse of the web alive and will move on. It will be the death of a dream. At least we can all let go and focus our energies on a new dream. Whatever that dream is, I hope high quality, human created art, knowledge, opinion and creativity is at the center of it.
Wow. A large chunk of the web just died. As if the echoes of millions of past websites cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened
LLMs are only a deathblow, albeit a massive one, to a trend that's been 10 years in the making.
I feel it's time for another small internet for us, with blackjack and dancers. But this time let's agree not to make it friendly and accessible for everyone, alright?
Andre Staltz has a pretty good article[0] about how that collapse is already happening with the likes of Facebook, Google, and Amazon taking over every other site.
Stack Overflow has been assimilated. Resistance is futile. It served a useful purpose but now it's part of the glorious AI universe to come. Rest in peace.
Maybe we won't even have to wait for LLMs to destroy the web we used to know.
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