The decline of HP

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   Kathleen Cochranposted 4 months ago

   This is no longer a writing site for writers. It is an advertising site. Congrats HP! You've turned a vibrant venue for writers interacting and encouraging each other and turned it into a cheap billboard on the worldwide cyber highway.

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      GA Andersonposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      To blunt that edge a little, maybe that's the only practical choice.
      
      It's just a thought. I haven't roamed in a while, but no other reputable writer's sites come to mind. The Net was already changing rapidly, and now with free AI  article generators  . . .
      
      GA

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      1. 76

         Ken Burgessposted 4 months agoin reply to this

         Agreed, the real change came with the sell to Maven.
         
         The real end will come in a year or so, after AI replaces human generated content like this, whatever niche this still fills.
         
         I was reviewing how to generate videos the other day and... the stuff available right now... for free... is jaw dropping.
         
         I'm not joking... we are talking better generation than what Hollywood could do just a couple years ago.  If interested in what I am talking about, these video gives a good round about review:
         
         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYUt4WE4Mrw
         
         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzbuYus8bH4
         
         I'm not a computer geek, but... I've been around the edges all my life, from when they were programmed with Cobol and Fortran and they ran in pristine dust free server rooms, to MSDOS, to hacking in to "debug" or "mod" games for my kids today.
         
         The leap they have made with AI generated content in the last 12 months... blows my mind... huge production value with very little work all things considered.

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            GA Andersonposted 4 months agoin reply to this

            I was also interested in the beginnings of AI. But that's another discussion.
            
            I think I understand Kathleen's point. A dozen years ago when HP started steadily growing, good content and good writers weren't so easy to find. There were (and of course, are) good writers, not just content writers, here and HP appreciated them and tried to maintain HP as a writer's site and not just a 'content farm' (we all remember the years when Google disagreed).
            
            Year by year the Net has made both less necessary. HP's gotta pay the bills too. Maven was the logical next step.
            
            GA

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      2. 70

         Miebakagh57posted 4 months agoin reply to this

         Welcome back GA. While you're away, its terrific with AI threads in the forum.                                        But ads daily add pains to our stories online.                                   And thank heavens AI has work it's havock on TAG some days ago, and the fireing and replacement of its director occured.

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   2. 91

      Nathanvilleposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      Yep, absolutely; we no longer have the comments section at the end of articles for example - which I do miss.
      
      But, notwithstanding that - my earnings from HP has remained constant; it still pays for Christmas.

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   3. 70

      Miebakagh57posted 4 months agoin reply to this

      I pity HubPages, for falling into such a state.

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   4. 85

      tsmogposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      "This is no longer a writing site for writers. It is an advertising site."
      
      That says a lot and is a good observation alluding to 'History' with the topic - HubPages. Then it gets complex for the:
      
      Who
      What
      Where
      When
      Why
      
      and,
      
      How much
      
      So, I ask, what is the thesis statement to answer those?
      
      Possibly, the rise and fall of a civilization within an ever changing world.
      
      From the National Geographic; "There are many reasons for this, but many historians point to three patterns in the fall of civilizations: internal change, external pressure, and environmental collapse. The fall of civilizations is never the result of a single event or pattern."
      
      I know, I know . . . a somewhat facetious view undertaken, but still food for thought.

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      1. 76

         Ken Burgessposted 4 months agoin reply to this

         That's pretty broad and very nondescript.
         
         Internal change... from democratic to tyrannical?
         
         External pressure... from hostile army or migrating peoples?
         
         Environmental... volcano eruption or drought?
         
         How severe do the changes need to be?
         
         I suppose this is the motivation for Globalization and International rule, at the expense of Nations.  If there are no Nations, then there will be no warring against one another.
         
         But as humans are tribal, I think this is going to be hard to pull off, I believe the only way China is going to go along is if it is the Major-Domo the Nation in a nationless world sitting at the head of the table dictating to others. 
         
         I don't think it was ever going to work, unless one nation was so overwhelmingly more powerful than the rest could force the world to accept it.
         
         America was that nation for about 50+ years... and the reasons why we are seeing all the turmoil in the world today, is that we allowed nations like China to build themselves up to be peers.
         
         And now that China, and to a lesser degree Russia, is on peer status, they have no interest in following America's wants or opening their borders and releasing their National Sovereignty to an International body that can tell them what to do.

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            tsmogposted 4 months agoin reply to this

            And, of HubPages, what say you?

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            1. 76

               Ken Burgessposted 4 months agoin reply to this

               AI will have made HP obsolete within 12 - 24 months.
               
               Partly because it will be generating all the content and partly because search engines will get to the point where it is never directing ANY traffic to HP content.
               
               The only people who will be visiting these sites are folks like you and me who already know about it and care to visit it.
               
               Grass roots - self generated links from other sites we create, or Twitter, etc.  but search engines will actively avoid it... while at the same time AI generated answers will make people stop searching for articles.

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