Howdy! If you’re seeing this, it means you’re either not a member or you are a member and you’re not logged in. If you’re curious how the sausage is made, you can become a member and read all about it.
Howdy! If you’re seeing this, it means you’re either not a member or you are a member and you’re not logged in. If you’re curious how the sausage is made, you can become a member and read all about it.
I come here because the content is created by people for people. There are no AI generated posts, and the feel is very genuine. I am very happy to use a little of my limited entertainment budget to support this place.
If traffic is a goal, the RSS feed (which I rely on) shouldn’t include the full text of any story. I do try to read the stories I am interested in on the site, but I catch myself cheating sometimes by just reading the whole thing in my RSS reader.
AI responses are largely untrustworthy garbage. I don’t use them, but have seen enough as they pop up at the top of a search to see that it’s often wrong in subjects I know. As such, I have to assume the responses on subjects I don’t know much about are equally poor. Yet, I am not surprised that people take that top answer and don’t go further.
People had gotten used to the summary of the Wikipedia page which genuinely was trustworthy.
The ad-supported model is on the way out. The fact is, the incentives were always misaligned and that’s how you end up in a situation where you keep putting out content your readers enjoy but somehow lose a bunch of money when someone tweaks an algorithm.
When something is ad supported, the consumer is not the customer. The customer is the one who pays. All of the sudden, you’re trying to balance what regular readers want with what brings eyeballs to the page. You have to decide how horrible you can make the experience for the reader while still getting enough clicks to pay the bills. It’s no way to live.
In the subscription model, incentives are aligned because the person paying for the content is also the one consuming it. Will this mean that there are far fewer viable websites? Yes. But the ones that remain will serve their readers rather than exploiting them.
THIS
Is there any talk in the industry of sharing subcribers/ subscription service for mutiple sites? This is something I have been thinking of recently. There are more and more sites that I usually read offering subscriptions, and often putting the most interesting things behind the paywall. There is only a certain amount a year I am willing to pay for website access, and it currently all goes to The Autopian. However, if I were able to keep that amount, and get access to a coupe other sites (theverge, defector, etc), and lose some of the membership benefits I would be interested. I know this may decrease my individual revenue to you, but it may bring in other people that currently subscribe to other site.
There may already be something like this, but i am not aware. I kind of imagine it as an a la carte service selection, where for something like $15 a month you can get subscriber access to 3 sites.
You staying at the Westin or on the fun side of the river.
Just spent a day in Savannah last Friday! Ended up at a comedy hour at some hole in the wall bar after dinner, then in a rooftop bar with a band. We were on vacation in SC.
I was just assuming he was at the convention center with the Westin. I been there a couple times on work conventions. Not much to do over there, but when I was there last, they had a boat to shuttle people across the river.
Been around long enough like what seems to be most of the readers/commenters here, so I remember the great Ad Revenue shifts in sites. Way back when video game sites stayed afloat by ad something-something, and then that all went away. (Pour one out for Lum the Mad). Then it all did something, then pivot to video, etc etc.
At least I trust Matt, David, Torch, all the others to not lead the Autopian to enshittification. One of the reasons I subscribe. With the raise of seemingly all subscriptions these days my wife and I were looking to cut back. I voted for Autopian over some other subscriptions because I read every day pretty much, and the content is key.
I’m not paying for AI slop, though I bet I will indirectly. Dammit.
Now I’m hungry for fried oysters.
Based on the comments here, I suspect most of us are already aware of how shitty AI and AI companies are, but thought I would share this third-party post-mortem of the Grok mecha-Hitler incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_9wkavYt4Y
TLDR: AI companies are not your friend, and it only takes one of them to do something unethical to open the floodgates for the rest to follow. And, for your automotive connection, guess who the CEO of one of the least ethical AI companies is?
The tech bros don’t care if they wreck the content industry, and they don’t care if that’s not a long-term sustainable strategy because by the time it blows up in all our faces they’ll have cashed out their billions of dollars and be able to retire to a private island away from the unwashed masses. This is one of the reasons I refuse to consume AI-generated content even if sometimes it _might_ be useful. The whole industry is steering us straight into the iceberg, and whether they realize it or not (they probably do, but never underestimate the lack of common sense in a computer nerd) I’m not going to help them.
The last wholesome act of the internet was the raid on Area 51. It’s all gone to shit since then. We are pursuing AI at my company and the number of times I tell people Gemini sum-ups are often bullshit to be faced with Pikachu surprised face is astonishing.
A few years ago on a trip to Maine I ate only oysters for dinner. They didn’t soak up the second course, which consisted of a whole bunch of beers. I woke up to go to the bathroom but went into the hallway of the hotel instead. I was locked out, buck naked.
Didn’t get arrested, so no regrets. I think.
Woohoo, timelord!
D’oh 🙁
Have fun, anyway! And watch out for that ttaM guy in the pics – he looks a little frazzled 😉
Out of curiosity, why are so many websites similar to this getting into video so much? I’d imagine that both the time and monetary costs are significantly higher than a standard article. Is there a significant amount of ad revenue to be made there, or is it more of an exposure thing to appeal more to various audiences?
I’ve wondered that too, then I wonder if I am just an outlier. Most of the time I’d rather read than watch but I don’t think a lot of the world be that way anymore.
I’ve left a comment on exactly one video, ever.
Definitely not an outlier, unless we both are….
Agreed. And I know I’m in the minority, but if I can read something in between work or personal tasks, I will. But a video almost demands full attention and usually provides less information per second, especially given how much work goes into it.
I’m with you fellers.
If so, it’s not a great strategy. AI is coming for the video space too and a lot of creators I follow are raising the alarm of knockoff AI accounts and low content, low effort AI slop.
To be clear, I’m not against video and spend way more time on Youtube than all other streaming services combined. Mainly just curious about the financial aspect of it. There are just different environments and times where I’d prefer video or long form text articles. Every time I need to do something in my browser, I also open a tab to this site to see if anything new was added and read it as time permits, video I consume only when I don’t have to do something else for a big block of time.
I listen to them, I don’t watch because the visuals don’t really matter for the content I like.
I have not watched any videos, but my guess is they just are trying to cast the biggest net possible as some people watch lots of videos. I have heard that Podcasting is trending down while Video Podcasting is way up. Its literally just cameras pointed at people talking at desks, but its what a lot of people apparently want. I would imagine Autopian vids are not a super huge time/resource sink (though non-zero). I know in general, sites like this tend to need to be everywhere to sustain profits, as in, Facebook, IG, Tik Tok, Youtube etc and across written, audio (podcast) and video formats.
I have way more opportunities to consume written/printed material than video. Video is for when I’m getting ready in the morning, or at night when I’m eating dinner. On my previous phone, battery life was a big concern; scrolling through an article didn’t burn up the battery as fast as video. And it’s much easier to enjoy some down time at work reading from a bunch of open tabs than it is to try watching a video.
From what I’ve observed around the office, apparently I’m the only one worried about the corporate nanny software reporting the number of times I watch YouTube videos; it’s very common to see people sitting at their desks watching something, whether or not it’s a break period.
Well, I read the headline, conjured some very weird expectations, and skipped the article. Now I am shocked that you would go to such an event.
Well, now that I’ve (admitted that I) read the article, I approve of you again (still). Mostly because you made the right culinary choice here (and seem to be a genuinely good person).
Did you miss the whole thing where he made me buy and drive a Rodius?
Oh, shoot, you are right that he was involved in that. I retract my statement about him being a genuinely good person.
Instead, I must now suggest he be canonized. Making that happen definitely counts as a miracle.
Ah, now I see why they are pushing AI stuff…bypasses the content creator’s sites, redirecting ad revenue.
(someone who knows nothing about running a website business).
Additional thought: If they starve the original content creators, where is the ‘real’ stuff going to come from that the AI mines?
In several years will the internet just be one giant heap of bogus garbage…unless you subscribe to their ‘pro AI’?
A) There won’t be a need for new ‘real’ stuff and B) Yes! That’s their end-goal as near as I can tell. It’s not about long term product, all about the near term profit.
Isn’t the internet just one giant heap of garbage now? The Autopian is REALLY the only site I visit regularly outside of news. The rest (and the news also) is just annoying and pointless anymore. The novelty has long since worn off.
Some would argue that the internet is already mostly a giant heap of bogus garbage.
Are those face sculpture things actually chairs? Can I get some for my office/cubicle/cardboard box behind Target?
Never underestimate the value what you are doing might have for other people. The Autopian has built up cultural/ethical trust in a remarkably short time and the only reasonable explanations for it are authenticity (we know there are real people running the site) and credibility (the content is engaging because it’s interesting and entertaining — this is baked into your core purpose).
Can confirm the industry weirdness. In past lives, I worked at an ad agency and also for Time Inc when they published dead tree magazines. Now is the time that will try good site’s souls. Best of luck, Matt. I’ll subscribe until dead and gone.
When I read “dead tree magazines” I pictured articles about the lives of fallen trees in forests. This one died in the great rainstorm in the fall of ’05…