I can’t understand why publications would strike deals for their content to be used for training LLMs. It seems incredibly short-sighted to me. They gain a windfall in exchange for what is basically nailing their own coffin shut.
What is the alternative path that is as lucrative as taking that big 4$$ check from OpenAI/Microsoft? I mean the only real alternative is that Google, Facebook, or Amazon write you a bigger check. But you're still at the same place because they'd only write that check to train their models as well.
The industry is backed into a corner. If no one else will pay, they have to take money from the only person who will.
I can imagine LLMs tipping the balance back in favor of something like traditional media. In short: people go nuts with them, and flood the open web with garbage (which may have the added benefit of degrading LLMs). That could, compared to the last 20 years, make curation and verified provenance far more important for people who value having the chance to know real things, which would drive customers back to pay-walled media organizations and publishers.
That may not happen, or may not happen on a time-frame compatible with most current media organizations. It would certainly take some time for everyday users to develop the necessary fatigue with LLMs and their output to motivate action.
I think it'd also depend on the LLM companies losing in court on copyright grounds. If the LLM companies win, I think we'll still get the crapflood, but the islands of sanity resisting the tide will be smaller or nonexistent. If LLMs put the final nail in the coffin of the media orgs, Wikipedia will die soon after (it's got separate culture problems that may do it in, but it is also totally dependent on the editorial decisions of traditional media and publishing).
Each individual publisher isn't needed. There is lots of training data in the world. So you can either get a payday or get nothing.