The author of @allaboutberlin on how Google AI Overviews are killing independent web publishing, citing a 70% drop in traffic after seven years of steady growth.

[joeltruher@sfba.social]

@everton137 @allaboutberlin It's almost funny how on-the-nose another recent example is: overfishing.org. The content harvester/processor is literally overfishing the content fishery. In the real world, overfishing was allowed to happen until enough bounty was destroyed that the surviving processors recognized their doom and got laws passed to restrain each other. Is something like that possible here? It's not a perfect analogy (previously harvested fish can be endlessly recycled, the crisis is more on the margin, processor concentration is much higher), but maybe?

[shadowfetch@indieweb.social]

@everton137 This is exactly why I've stuck to native iOS apps over web tools, but even the App Store feels precarious now. Seeing years of hand-curated, high-quality work get digested into an LLM with zero return for the creator is incredibly demoralizing for any indie builder.

[sterpeto@social.vivaldi.net]

@everton137 @allaboutberlin Then stop supporting Google. If you're not making money from you better ignore it and do your work to be indexed by other search engines. They'll replace you anyway soon. Fuck SEO. Maybe we should come back to build curated indexes of directories.

[dec23k@mastodon.ie]

@Steve @ayl @everton137 @allaboutberlin
Already done:

"Before Google, before Facebook, in the internet that time forgot, we needed a way to find websites. By joining a webring with similar-themed sites we can help each other out by cross-linking between them."
https://faircamp.webr.ing/directory.html

See also:
https://waywardweb.org/
https://www.webring.gg/

[ayl@mastodon.social]

@dec23k @Steve @everton137 @allaboutberlin thanks for sharing!

[dec23k@mastodon.ie]

@Ooze @ayl @everton137 @allaboutberlin
I put some webring links here:
https://mastodon.ie/@dec23k/116624249351912791

[djsouthworth@wandering.shop]

@sterpeto @everton137 @allaboutberlin

Bring back webrings. In fact, I am going to add one to my site this weekend!

[itchi5@illo.social]

@everton137 @allaboutberlin

Let them open an account on non-US social media, and see if Mojeek (a 100% UK searchmachine) can do something for them.

The worst thing to do is to complain (which is understandable) but then change nothing.

[pepijn@mastodon.online]

.org

Pepijn (@Pepijn@mastodon.online)

This received some questions. Specifically 'In today's siloed internet its usefulness is gone.' Search was the largest driver of traffic to the website. Informing the general public was the goal. For years it worked truly well, with for example traffic spikes around national holidays involving consumption of fish :) The website had no ads, nor external "social" (tracking) integrations. All information was properly referenced. It was used and referenced in lots of educational material. 1/x

Mastodon (mastodon.online)

@joeltruher @everton137 @allaboutberlin

[itchi5@illo.social]

@gunchleoc @allaboutberlin @everton137

Raising awareness is always good, but not looking for substitutes is just making it worse.

The gigantic corporation Google started growing with a few people, so can substitutes.

[itchi5@illo.social]

@gunchleoc @allaboutberlin @everton137

Well there you go. You made a change by not using google services, therefor taking a bit of their power.

Bit by bit, individual by individual, people will switch as long as other people make notice about it, untill the critical mass is reached and the corporate is powerless.

And excactly that, is the goal of 'acting'.

[schmaker@schmaker.eu]

@everton137 @allaboutberlin Why do we act like there is only one search engine?

[phosphenes@mastodon.social]

@hellomiakoda @everton137 @allaboutberlin

Exactly. Eating their own seed corn seems to be the new business model. I guess executives' the plan is to burn Google and jump clear on golden parachutes.

[desantis@mastodon.bida.im]

@schmaker @everton137 @allaboutberlin I think it’s a combination of laziness and ignorance. It reminds me of the early days of the web (not the internet) where domain names were just bought up, because they thought (and the users did..) they’d just type an address to find what they wanted. Instead if people had to use search engines I think we’d have a different situation nowadays.

[seruko@mstdn.social]

@everton137 @allaboutberlin
It sounds like theft,
it looks like theft,
It takes money from one person like theft,
It rots away the very base of itself like theft,
How is this not just theft?