It seems to me that we have to make a few uncomfortable choices before we start solving this.
Do we accept that our audience will shrink permanently and there is no way around it? Then we could embrace the role of a top source for LLMs and "ground truth". We would stop obsessing about the trends and focus on how to maintain a healthy community and funding. Or do we want to fight against shrinking audiences? Then, in my mind, we would need to be very aggressive and start using some tools and technologies that we have always been very sceptical of. This, I guess, would include things like content optimisation, an AI chat, major investment in versatile social media channels and various new apps that deliver content under our brands to specific audiences. D На ср, 8.07.2026 г. в 3:41 Luis Villa via Wikimedia-l < [email protected]> написа: > On Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 4:26 PM Erik Moeller via Wikimedia-l < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> And, surprise surprise, those [Google AI] summaries do cost clicks. See >> e.g. this >> Pew study from a year ago: >> >> https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/ >> >> Google and other search engines have been continuously optimizing >> those summaries since, so I would expect the effect size to increase >> over time. I personally start many of my searches on g.ai (their more >> robust AI Mode) directly; a lot of what we used to call "search" is >> IMO headed that way. > > > I was talking with a friend in the news business recently, and they said > news sites are actively preparing for “Google Zero”, the day when Google > Search sends them zero (or effectively zero, for revenue purposes) traffic. > That’s why every quality news site is pushing subscriptions and social > network video hard. > > “Google Zero” is a very, very predictable future for us as well.[1] > > A few months ago, before I had this useful and simple catchphrase, I urged > some Foundation folks to orient their annual strategy process around the > loss of 100% of search referral traffic, not 8% (as it was in the spring), > or 20% (as it may be now), or whatever number it happens to be by the time > we gather in Paris or Wikimania 2027. > > But I think now that was the wrong question. The right question is: what > are *we* are going to do about Google Zero? > > This question is very explicitly not: *what is WMF going to do about > Google Zero*. We can, should, must be more than WMF in this moment. If > we’re reduced to just the capabilities and capacity of a single US > non-profit of a few hundred people, we’re going to lose. > > To win (or even just to survive) we must be a very broad, innovative, > not-afraid-to-fail movement that happens to contain a US 501(c)3. > > The good news, I think, is that we’re uniquely well-positioned to do that: > - Open knowledge, aside from Wikipedia, has never been healthier (with > arxiv, GH, etc.); > - our APIs and data allow many experiments, as do those of our partners > like Archive; > - if we grow our editors through different channels, our mission can still > be achieved even if we are no longer a top-10 website; > - etc. > > I hope to see a lot of you around Wikimania to talk about this. > > Luis > > [1] Not necessarily the only future; we’re currently on the path of > newspapers (near-total collapse) but it isn’t impossible to imagine curves > like arxiv’s or reddit’s or github’s > https://lu.is/2026/04/web-collaboration-five-graphs/ > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines > at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/U7L5KGDTMWVILP3MKCVTWDK23ODIGVL6/ > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
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