Cloudflare CEO warns AI and zero-click internet are killing the web's business model
Cloudflare CEO warns AI and zero-click internet are killing the web's business model
Long live the Fediverse?
Google is in an interesting predicament. Their ad service brings in so much revenue, but it's based on search sending traffic to places where those ads are consumed.
Boost search through Overviews and you're limiting the effectiveness and reach of your ad service. And to top it off, your search needs content to ingest and remain relevant. But if the ad revenue drops off to websites, they go out of business, so search has less stuff to ingest.
It's like a reverse flywheel, where each part is working to harm the other part. People have been pointing this out for the last couple of years, but Google search just keeps adding more to Overviews and choking off the flow.
And before you say "good, I hate ads," most of the internet today and its services are paid by ad revenue changing hands. That includes ISPs that host the Fediverse, networking and storage gear makers, pretty much everything to do with open source, and so many jobs that exist to keep the whole thing humming so we can enjoy cat memes.
If Google (or someone like Cloudflare) doesn't figure out a way to keep the money flowing, we may be watching a sea shift in how the internet has worked in the last 30 years.
I think Google can never really hope to disrupt itself. The entire company is oriented towards selling those ads. So any other internal division that tries to eliminate the ads division is going to have a very uphill battle.
IMO the industry is ripening for disruption and someone will come along with a new idea for how to incentivize content generation and it will very likely continue to involve some heavy commercial marketing.
yea they need those ads, youtube ads bring in around 37bn for the platform in ad revenue.
Google and/or Cloudflare seem to be in a Catch-22 if they don't make good decisions.
Using the more-than-zero-click internet of today is like sticking your dick into the mysterious mush at the bottom of a dumpster; maybe it'll feel good, but it will also certainly feel absolutely disgusting no matter what.
Then there are the cookie banners, the email-begging popups, the login walls, the top 3 or 5 or more search results being barely-relevant sponsored garbage, the dark patterns and so on and so forth. It just becomes too much to bear. Maybe not everyone is equipped with the understanding of the existence of enshittification, but everyone sure is sick and tired of it.
And finally, there's the dreaded paywall:
Today, our way of life requires us to ask countless questions which we simply don't know the answers to. The fastest way to find them is through websites via search engines, but since shareholders value growth over profit, they all must be chock full of the aforementioned crap and bloat. The zero-click internet offers all of the benefits without any of the drawbacks. The nonzero-click internet simply doesn't compete in time or convenience, even if it does in accuracy. If they want to have their users back, they'll need to make their services not painful to use.
duckduckgo added the "instant answers" sidebar for the first time back in 2014 and google did the same not too long after, so its definitely not a new issue
Yep there is nothing stopping new web sites coming online. It's just hard to find them. Guess what was also hard in the early Internet days? Finding them. Web rings may make a big comeback.
I've got great news for you
I have a few books that came free with PC mags back in the day, full of links to mad crazy websites and interesting/useful stuff. So few pixels back then!!
Ah yes when the money that we give monthly to connect dries up. Yes that money will certainly dry up sometime