I am a former software engineer. Now I run a website that helps people settle in Germany.
Google AI summaries and ChatGPT have almost halved my traffic. They are a scourge on informational websites, parasites.
It’s depressing to see the independent web being strangled like that. It’s only a matter of time before they become the entire internet for many, and then the enshittification will be more brutal than anything before it.
I will be fine, but I have to divert 6-10 months on my life to damage control[0] instead of working on what matters to my audience. That happened by chance; other websites won’t be so lucky.
So yeah, morale is low. It feels like a brazen consolidation play by big tech, in all aspects of our lives.
On the bright side, it does make coding a bit easier. It spits out small bits of code and saves me a lot of API docs round trips. I can focus on business logic instead of basic code. AI is also a phenomenal writing tool. I use it for trying different phrasing options, reverse word and express search, and translation nuances. It does enable me in that way.
Google AI summaries and ChatGPT have almost halved my traffic. They are a scourge on informational websites, parasites.
It’s depressing to see the independent web being strangled like that. It’s only a matter of time before they become the entire internet for many, and then the enshittification will be more brutal than anything before it.
I will be fine, but I have to divert 6-10 months on my life to damage control[0] instead of working on what matters to my audience. That happened by chance; other websites won’t be so lucky.
So yeah, morale is low. It feels like a brazen consolidation play by big tech, in all aspects of our lives.
On the bright side, it does make coding a bit easier. It spits out small bits of code and saves me a lot of API docs round trips. I can focus on business logic instead of basic code. AI is also a phenomenal writing tool. I use it for trying different phrasing options, reverse word and express search, and translation nuances. It does enable me in that way.
[0] https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/health-insurance