Lots of thoughts on the Arc browser announcement
1. Love the format of making fun of Steve Jobs copycat announcements.
2. A browser being an AI agent that does tasks for a user is one of the original dreams of the internet. The HTTP header is called “user-agent” for a reason
3. Multiple companies now see blood in the water when it comes to Google’s 10 blue links + ads model and are coming in for the kill.
4. No one has explained how websites make money if all we interact with is LLMs and chatbots that are summarizing their data.
@carnage4life Sure, but they've had a decade of adblockers to portend that problem and they've steadfastly refused to address it. Screw 'em.
@LouisIngenthron @carnage4life who would make the content for LLMs to scrap if websites are gone?
@tafadzwa @carnage4life You mean if the ad-supported websites were gone?
LLMs would learn to sound less like customer service agents because they'd ingest more natural writing.
@LouisIngenthron @carnage4life why would anyone want to write for LLMs?
@tafadzwa @carnage4life Nobody writes "for LLMs". We write for humans and humans use tools like LLMs to aggregate that information.
@LouisIngenthron @carnage4life I think for now most writers still imagine humans will be reading their words
@tafadzwa @carnage4life Yeah, and most of us will. But they need to stop expecting us to look at their ads, because we've installed adblockers.
@tafadzwa @carnage4life Is that why all the big journalism outlets are consolidating and going out of business and having massive layoffs?
@LouisIngenthron @carnage4life you figure that's because everyone has discovered ad blockers in the last couple of months? And the big ad platforms are posting record revenues?
@tafadzwa @carnage4life Last couple of months? No, the slow decay of the ad-supported journalism industry has been going on for a decade now. They had plenty of time to pivot, and those that have are doing better than those who haven't.
@LouisIngenthron @carnage4life ad blockers have existed for a while. People have still been able to earn a living writing on the web