[rexreed]

In not too many years, the average user will be prompting to get their needs met, rather than searching a flawed search system, wading through pages of sponsored and SEO-gamified links, opening up multiple tabs to try to dig out the details from sites hustling whatever they hustle, and then trying to read to get their needs met. Google sees the writing on the wall, which is going towards a prompt-based direct ask system mediated by an LLM. It definitely is far from perfect now, but the writing is on the wall. Search and SEO are both going to be relics of a bygone past in not too many years.

[mrgoldenbrown]

The same forces that drowned us in SEO crap will drown us in LLMO crap. Hopefully we'll enjoy a brief period of usefulness first.

[mu53]

I don't know. There were recently some documents released on how OpenAI was soliciting companies to integrate their product recommendations more deeply into the training data. This is obvious a huge way to monetize chatgpt-like products. Rather than SEO optimized sites gathering the ad revenue with click bait and gamification, OpenAI will collect the revenue themselves.

At the end of this enshittification, users will be looking for other options. Imagine a salesman that is ignoring the elephant in the room to tell you that if you bought this brand of shoes, you would run faster instead of giving tips on the skills to learn to be a better runner.

Search is a great way to find high-quality references and non-hallucinated answers by tweaking the keywords slightly. A salesman-like LLM might be pushing products when you just need information. ChatGPT's authority is going to dwindle, and search is a good tool to find authoritative sources

[_heimdall]

I'd argue that sales is entirely a game of ignoring the elephant in the room and selling someone on something they don't already think they need.

Its not really sales if I go into a shoe store and say I want a pair of Air Jordan 4s in size 11, that's just customer service.

[yoyogogo69]

people already know how to be a better runner. they just dont want to do it. they rather buy shoes that make them run faster instead. people also dont like choice. they might think they do but really i dont believe it. getting a single answer with a simple question is more appealing than having to come up with a detailed question with many answers to choose from. even searches have been doing this with the single boxed result at the top