Revisiting the closed canon

A post I wrote in 2023, the closing of the canon, predicted that LLM answers would replace search results, dramatically lowering traffic to individual sites, thereby removing the incentives to even write along with building and maintaining websites. Unfortunately, this is proving to be true. I recommend reading AI is killing All About Berlin by Nicolas Bouliane, who runs a helpful site for expats navigating life in Berlin. People making sense of the world around them and then taking the time to share that sense-making via writing is what I enjoy about internet. In the case of Nicolas: Local and federal government offices refer people to my guides. The Berlin immigration office uses my data about themselves. It inspired two government portals and a few similar websites in other cities. I don’t think any of us really understand the consequences of this type of writing slowly withering away. Meanwhile LLMs will continue to churn out mashed up information from the late 2010s for decades…