Comment by ryandvm
4 days ago
I would say the latter. For software dev questions, my Google searches and Stack Overflow visits have fallen off a cliff since I started paying for ChatGPT.
Ironically, I probably would have paid the same amount to Google for ad-free, old-style (accurate) Google searches, but no, they just wanted to keep cranking that ad dial up every year so that ship has sailed.
At this point, I'm enjoying watching the old guard of search scrambling to find a life jacket.
Stackoverflow visits fell[1] off a cliff since GPT became popular.
Google is getting destroyed by the chatbot workflow because it is no longer the start of a browser session and clickthrus (the things that earn the high sponsored link rates) are falling as more users get their queries answered faster with less effort.
[1] https://x.com/altimor/status/1853893158368928124?s=46
StackOverflow has been dying a slow death since longer than before ChatGPT. Sure, ChatGPT is helping to accelerate it. The real data (leave aside social/community for a moment) issue with SO.com: Many answers don't age well. So, you have an answer from 8 years ago with 65 upvotes, but now the lang/lib was updated in 2023. A newer, more relevant answer is waaaaaaay down and only has one upvote. Personal note: I still pine for the old days when Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood were at the helm. They really knew how to build and sustain a vibrant community.
Are they, though? Inaccurate info is pretty common from LLMs.
Inaccurate info exists everywhere. StackOverflow contains inaccurate, outdated, incomplete info. Caveat Emptor wherever you are.
LLMs are like a knife. It is a tool that can hurt you if you misuse it, but it also has the capability to save LOTS to time if you use it well.
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