finally drunk enough to write the
"RTFM --> Stack Overflow --> LLM"
post
https://sequentialread.com/usability-and-llms-ram-bottleneck/
@forestjohnson interesting parallel between the manual, Stack Overflow, and LLM.
For me, Stack overflow didn't quite replace blogs, didn't quite replace the man pages.
But LLM are making blog shut down, Stack Overflow had to sell their data to LLMs since they don't see the usage (and scrapper was a nassive issue).
So to me, this is different as it is destructive and not additive if that makes sense.
I think they were both destructive, I kinda talk about that in the post,
<blockquote>...unspoken rule / expectation that any issue a user might run into should be solved by looking up a workaround posted to a site like StackOverflow, instead of being the software author's responsibility to fix. Unless that software author happens to be a megacorporation w/ a public-facing product in a competitive market.
</blockquote>SO lowering the bar for what it takes to publish software that people can figure out how to use
@forestjohnson I think these are different places where destruction happen.
Like Stack Overflow destroyed the (illusion of) usable software.
Stack Overflow might have destroyed the little accountability software dev had to their community of users.
But stack overflow didn't stop remove blog posts from existance.
LLMs also destroy usability since it is now down to a single individual.
They also absolve devs from all accountabukiry since "fork and use claude" is certain worse than "fork".
But people cannot host useful blog the same way since it gets scrapped to oblivion by LLM agents, stack overflow is not updated anymore.
And the new source of "data" are website with fully automated LLM generated article that are factually incorrect with no community around it to rectify any of it.
So that's a new destruction, the old ecosystem is effectivelly suffocated by the externalisation of the cost, and replaced by the new ecosystem that is mostly astrosurfing for ad revenue.
I think that's new.
Even if forum are on the decline, Stack Overflow didn't DDoS them to remove them from existance.
@mxfraud yeah, i understand and agree, I had to develop a scraper blocker to keep our git server from constantly crashing so I understand the issue here. Used to be if you had a comment section or open registration on anything it would be filled with spam, now its worse where the site will be ddos'd by scrapers coming from "residential proxy" trojan malware installed on everybodies phones.
https://git.cyberia.club/sequentialread/pow-bot-deterrent-rp
But at the same time, whether I use or don't use some LLM on my own GPU, it doesn't change any of this. I see it like dumpster diving. I am not increasing the demand for little caesars pizza by taking the pizza from the dumpster. If anything, I think we should promote eating food waste in this analogy (use open weights model, model is good enough, demand for proprietary one is misguided)
I guess you could argue that by buying the GPU on ebay, I'm increasing the demand for the GPU, but so what? I'd rather have it than not have it and at least im offering to share with anyone who wants.