What value does the traffic have for you? Is it lost revenue from ads? Or are you selling something? If you're selling something, then the AIs could very well be giving you more sales than they take away.
I noticed a drop in traffic, despite having added a lot of valuable guides this year. The traffic per page is way down, and only for Google.
You are correct that people don’t pay for this, even when they email me and I personally assist them. There’s just an expectation that things on the internet are free and that’s fine.
As for affiliate links, I think they are a thing of the past. It's exactly these that web users want to avoid. Better to make a deal where you charge the bank a fee for each person you sign up. There's a lot of banks who offer these referral deals to all their customers. For example N26 gives you €70 per referral and Wise gives £25 per referral.
You can probably make good money from your website from doing what you love. But ads and affiliate links and getting money from traffic is a thing of the past.
I’d much rather help a greater number of people for free than the well-off minority that can afford my time. I’d sooner run my business into the ground than change this.
I think you are thinking and operating in the old paradigm, thinking that somebody spending a few hundred dollars on getting expert help on the Internet is outrageous, even if it's a life changing spend. Would you consider somebody spending a few hundred dollars on expert advice in a fancy office to be outrageous? Then consider that your expertise is way higher. There's nothing wrong with you charging for your immigration services and expertise. And as I said, you can still offer as much information for free as you please. It's only better for sales.
Google does not owe you any traffic and they don't owe you any business income from affiliate links or ads. Zero. If you don't like Google using the information on your website that you are giving away for free, then it only takes a few minutes to remove your domain from Google.
You can combine giving information for free with getting paid for your work. But you can't demand that Google pays for that.
Thank You For Making And Sharing :)