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No clicks, no content: The unsustainable future of AI search

(bradt.ca)
137 points bradt | 2 comments | 31 Aug 25 15:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.553s | source
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djoldman ◴[31 Aug 25 16:07 UTC] No.45084227[source]▶
> ChatGPT, Google, and its competitors are rapidly diverting traffic from publishers. Publishers are fighting to survive through lawsuits, partnerships, paywalls, and micropayments. It’s pretty bleak, but unfortunately I think the situation is far worse than it seems.

> The article focuses mainly on the publishing industry, news and magazine sites that rely primarily on visits to their sites and selling ads.

I'm not sure where this comes from. The way forward for publishers of content like newspapers is subscription fees and has been for a long time.

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist revenues are subscription fee dominant, for example.

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1. insane_dreamer ◴[31 Aug 25 16:53 UTC] No.45084698[source]▶
Yes but it also means journalism will be reduced to a few voices who can grow their subscription base large enough to survive. That is not a good thing.
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2. bgwalter ◴[31 Aug 25 17:07 UTC] No.45084829[source]▶
Yes, for example the Miami Herald is still accessible without a subscription and was the prime investigative newspaper in the case of a Palm Beach resident (not Trump!) who cannot be mentioned here. They did excellent work.