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A comment on AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks. Parent comment

Re:AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks by ethbr1 on Thursday July 24, 2025 @04:21AM (#44668335)
> everyone will see a fight to be the first one to be accessed to get an opportunity to gaslight the agent into their view of the world

In this model, only monetizable content will be generated though.

As much as we abhor what advertising has done to the web, at least it’s independent of content: pair quality content with ads, make money.

In the brave new AI search world, only content which itself is directly monetizable will be created. E.g. astroturf ads

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks by ricardobeat on Thursday July 24, 2025 @05:08AM (#44668632)
> pair quality content with ads, make money

Huh, the exact opposite happened. Create as much filler content as possible, optimized for SEO, generate thousands of variants to capture search traffic, cover as much of the screen as possible with ads, use tricks to increase page view count, and then make money.

Publishers of quality content have moved to subscriptions, which is a different kind of trouble.

> only content which itself is directly monetizable will be created

We have already been here for a while and it can hardly get any worse.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks by ethbr1 on Thursday July 24, 2025 @08:04AM (#44669659)
> it can hardly get any worse

I’ll take that bet.

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Re:AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks by graemep on Thursday July 24, 2025 @06:51AM (#44669209)
> In the brave new AI search world, only content which itself is directly monetizable will be created

Or content that is not meant to make money (e.g. opinion pieces arguing for a cause), or is very specific to products that make money (e.g. documentation, manuals), or is funded by governments or non-profits for the public good.

[ Parent | on HN ]