I used to run a content website many moons ago. No spammy articles, focused onto a single tech topic, a moderate amount of ads (Google), well researched articles. Then one day my organic Google traffic fell by some 80%. If I remember correctly it bounced around very wildly during the following months as Google updated their algorithms.

At the time I was very much not happy about it. Now I'm happy it happened before I had scaled it too far and come to depend on that income too much. It made me realize that it's not only my work that my income depended on, but the whims of a single giant company. And that that's a position I don't want to find myself later down the road.

It's a sad truth that any internet business that's not yet a strong brand in itself is reliant on Google and their AI in a very unhealthy way. I have no idea how to fix this.