[igloopan]

I think you're missing the context that is the article. The candy in this case is the people who may or may not go to read your e.g. ramen recipe. The real problem, as I see it, is that over time, as LLMs absorb the information covered by that recipe, fewer people will actually look at the search results since the AI summary tells them how to make a good-enough bowl of ramen. The amount of ramen enjoyers is zero-sum. Your recipe will, of course, stay up and accessible to real people but LLMs take away impressions that could have been yours. In regards to this metaphor, they take your candy and put it in their own bowl.

[horsawlarway]

So what is the goal behind gathering those impressions?

Why do you take this as a problem?

And I'm not being glib here - those are genuine questions. If the goal is to share a good ramen recipe... are you not still achieving that?

[SamBam]

The internet would not exist if it consisted of people just putting stuff out there, happy that it's released into the wilds of the overall consciousness, and nothing more. People are willing to put the time and effort into posting stuff for other reasons. Building community, gaining recognition, making money. Even on a website like HN we post under consistent usernames with the vague sense that these words are ours. If posts had no usernames, no one would comment on this site.

It's completely disingenuous to say that everyone who creates content -- blog authors, recipe creators, book writers, artists, etc -- should just be happy feeding the global consciousness because then everyone will get a tiny diluted iota of their unattributed wisdom.

[jasonvorhe]

That's also trained behavior due to SEO infested recipe sites filled with advertorials, referral links to expensive kitchen equipment, long form texts about the recipe with the recipe hidden somewhere below that.

Same goes for other stuff that can be easily propped up with lengthy text stuffed with just the right terms to spam search indexes with.

LLMs are just readability on speed, with the downsides of drugs.