[nicbou]

I earn affiliate income on https://allaboutberlin.com. It allows me to help far more people by keeping everything free. It's been my main source of income for a few years now.

AI is changing the game - it halved my traffic - but so far it's still survivable. I intend to keep going until it's no longer tenable.

[keiferski]

Just some unsolicited advice: the company I work for has benefited from AI traffic, I think because people are looking for a certain software solution to a particular problem, which we provide. In other words, they still need to visit our site to solve the problem. This is unlike many other AI queries, where the solution is a piece of information. I imagine your site is full of such information, which is why your traffic is being halved by AI.

So if it’s possible, I’d try to change your business model to something where people still need to visit your site to get their problem solved. Maybe referrals?

[nicbou]

I started this website to surface and summarize information that just did not exist on the internet before. This work is still needed, even if AI captures half of the value I create.

If I wanted to build software that I charge for, I have a laundry list of validated business ideas for it. It just isn't why I've started this website.

[fandorin]

Cool! Did AI halve your income as well? Or did it just affect the traffic (low quality traffic)?

[nicbou]

I had to make up for it. This year was a huge diversion from my usual work as I scrambled to monetise properly. I spent a lot more time on topics that bring revenue, instead of purely optimising for usefulness as in the past.

It had a good outcome though: I made a series of really useful upgrades to my health insurance advice. I am happy that the solution was to make a better product, not to squeeze my audience more.

https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/health-insurance