AI Apocalypse: How Google is Changing the Internet-- Implications for SolderSmoke

Here's what happened in a nutshell:  During the spring of this year Google rolled out an automatic AI search feature.  So now, when you have a question, Google's AI looks at websites across the web and writes up a nice, specific answer to your question.  Good for you, but disastrous for those who built blogs and websites on the assumption that Google searches would be sending a lot of people to our sites.  Why go to the sites if the nice AI has already given you the answer?  Many of us have seen precipitous drops in the numbers of visitors.  I have noticed an especially large drop in the number of comments on my blog posts.   And I have noticed that many of the other blogs listed on my blog site are no longer posting regularly. 

This is not imaginary. 

Here is a BBC article on what has happened: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250611-ai-mode-is-google-about-to-change-the-internet-forever

Here is TWiT TV talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDdLw1ubLaY&t=86s

Andreas Speiss (White gloves, Swiss accent, motorcycle hat) talks about the YouTube trends that are causing him to stop regular video production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTerwIniB24

Leo Sampson talks about the pressure to get high hit numbers on YouTube (scroll forward to the 3 minute 20 second mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4tSOQO3kxY

Fraser Cain of Universe Today talks about the Google ""AI apocalypse" (scroll ahead to the 18 minute mark): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-podcast/id794058155?i=1000714736434

This is unfortunate, and it does seem unfair.  The AI is essentially taking our content, repackaging it, and serving it up for readers.  The AI site gets to monetize the visits -- the blog owners that the AI gets the information from do not.  

But what should we do in response?

Well, we will resist the forces that seem to be pushing us into oblivion.  We know we are a very niche operation.  At best we are NIMCELS:  "Niche Internet Micro-Celebrities."  We are content with our NIMCEL status.  We know that our posts and podcasts about homebrew rigs will never go viral nor rival the hit counts of Taylor Swift or Arianna Grande.  And we are not in this for the money (!).   Some additional comments would be encouraging -- these comments let us know that we are not blogging/podcasting into the abyss. 

So,  just keep reading the blog, listening to the podcast, perhaps become a Patreon sponsor  and -- perhaps above all -- put comments on the blog site and the YouTube channel. Help spread the word about our efforts. 

An old fashioned RSS reader may help.  Feedly works well:  Here are some recent recommendations: 

https://zapier.com/blog/best-rss-feed-reader-apps/

Here is the RSS feed for the SolderSmoke Blog: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SoldersmokeDailyNews

And here is the RSS feed for the podcast: http://www.soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke.rss

Here is the ID for the SolderSmoke YouTube channel.  Please subscribe and comment!  https://youtube.com/@soldersmoke?si=mYMzMNtsPyKot7q4

Become a Patreon sponsor for SolderSmoke: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolderSmoke

We thank you for your support.