What caught my eye this week.
Ever wonder what happened to that great little money or travel or cookery blog you read for years?
Yeah, it closed down – or at least its creators stopped updating it.
Why would they? Nobody visits anymore.
But maybe you didn’t notice because Google no longer takes you there, anyway.
Google search results are now dominated by big corporates who create content that’s made more to appeal to Google’s search engine than readers, and who can afford to pay SEO experts to keep up with Google’s endless rule changes.
To some extent Google’s apparent capriciousness was well-intentioned, as it’s fought to outrun spam sites and AI slop, and other gaming of the system.
But the end result is that the death of the independent web continues apace, with the damage done by waves of Google algorithm changes now redoubled with a kick in the balls from AI chatbots and AI search.
You don’t have to take my word for it:
- ‘AI is killing the web‘ warned The Economist earlier this month.
- Venture capitalist Tom Tonguz shared data showing how OpenAI already gets about a quarter of the queries Google gets every day.
- In response, Google is including more AI summaries in search results. And people tend not to follow these links to see where the data comes from.
It’s all an existential threat for anyone who creates the content that AI outfits train their models on, which they then regurgitate to their users freely instead of directing back to the original source.
We’re all in it together
Fortunately I ignored Google – and some well-meaning people who worked there – when they assured me that small publishers had nothing to worry about.
I realised the future of Monevator must be as an email newsletter – where we can sidestep search and the web altogether – and with our best posts reserved for those who pay to support our ongoing efforts.
After 15 years of sharing our knowledge for free it was a hard decision to make.
But honestly, introducing paywalled Monevator content two years ago has kept the lights on at Monevator Towers.
Ever more of you have become Monevator members. We’re grateful to every one.
Our member-only content archives are getting pretty well-stocked, too:
- Our Mavens articles (for all our members)
- Our Moguls articles (for active investors – or simply our biggest supporters!)
Only a small percentage of members ever cancel (‘churn’, in the industry lingo) which is also heartening.
So if you’re not a member, please do sign up. The price is still the same as two years ago. Annual Mavens membership is a steal!
A greater share of our content will probably have to go behind the paywall in the years ahead – perhaps including Weekend Reading.1
I don’t like it either. But I don’t run a tech giant and I didn’t make up the rules.
How to get Monevator membership for free
On the grounds that some of you must like what we do, I’m introducing a referral program.
This way you can tell your nearest and dearest, and bag yourself an ongoing discount as a small thank you from us for your troubles.
To benefit, you must be on an annual membership plan. Not a monthly plan.
Most of you are already annual members. But if you’re not then please switch before referring anyone, as it won’t count otherwise. (Annual is cheaper, too!)
- See the membership FAQ for how to change member plans
Already an annual member? Great, then by referring friends and family who would enjoy Monevator to sign-up to our annual memberships via your personal link, you can get a recurring discount on your own membership as follows:
Yep – find ten lucky people who become Monevator members on annual plans and you’ll get your own membership plan for free, forever!
- You will find your unique referral code to share via your membership account settings. See the membership FAQ for more details
I stress again, both you and your referees must be annual members for the referral to count.
The software handles referrals automatically and I can’t change things later, so please do take note of this.
Monevator versus Skynet
Obviously I hope these referrals will get us a few more members. But I also see the discounts as a tiny way to thank our most loyal readers.
I know it will take a long time for most people to get to ten referrals, if ever. (Though if you run a website – or have a lot of money-savvy workmates – who knows?)
But I love the idea of our top supporters getting even just a few quid off.
So again, please see the membership FAQ to learn where to find your unique referral code, and give it a go.
And thanks again for supporting us fleshy and bloody humans over the robots!
P.S. I forgot to include the link to my new property newsletter Propegator last week. Not very good at this promo malarkey, am I? Anyway it’s just a fun hobby project, but if you live in London you might like it so please do take a look.
From Monevator
Gold miners: do they improve your portfolio? [Members] – Monevator
Going without versus doing without – Monevator
From the archive-ator: How to invest in sectors, themes, and megatrends – Monevator
News
Average house price registers steepest drop for 20 years – Rightmove
UK vehicle making hits lowest level since 1953 – BBC
Rachel Reeves’ capital gains tax changes backfire as receipts fall – MoneyWeek
Government to conduct review into State Pension age – Sky
City trader wins bid to overturn LIBOR-rigging conviction – Standard
Brewdog to close 10 pubs across UK, citing ‘ongoing industry challenges’ – BBC
BNY, Goldman agree tokenised money market fund deal – The Block
Wise co-founder slams ‘inappropriate and unfair’ US listing move – Standard
Payment on account deadline: 31 July to avoid HMRC’s 8.25% penalty – Which
Wall Street is starting to warn about the stock market – Sherwood
Products and services
FCA softens remortgaging rules in dash for growth – City AM
How does NS&I’s new one-year savings bond compare to rivals? – This Is Money
Get up to £2,000 when you switch to an Interactive Investor SIPP. Terms and fees apply. – Interactive Investor
Eight questions answered about cash ISAs – Which
How to save money on airport parking – Guardian
Get up to £100 as a welcome bonus when you open a new account with InvestEngine via our link. (Minimum deposit of £100, T&Cs apply. Capital at risk) – InvestEngine
Carmakers discounting EVs on fears they’ll not qualify for new grants – T.I.M.
Cut the cost of using your mobile phone abroad – Be Clever With Your Cash
Homes for sale with wild gardens, in pictures – Guardian
Comment and opinion
Selling sales – Money with Katie
Could the triple-lock really push state pension age to 74? – This Is Money
“What I learned from being disinherited” – Daisy Goodwin
Restrictions on capital flows should be considered [Paywall] – Financial Times
Small, value, or small/value? – Klement on Investing
The market has a short memory – Apollo Academy
What if gold went the way of diamonds? – Abnormal Returns
If active investing is the loser’s game, what is the winner’s game? – Morningstar
Avoiding investment scams [Podcast] – Rational Reminder
To Bitcoin or not to Bitcoin? The corporate cash question – Musings on Markets
Gilts (again) mini-special
Investing veteran Peter Spiller: brace for a breakdown in UK gilts – City AM
New OBR research paints a painful future for gilts – Interactive Investor
Britain is at the mercy of the bond markets as debt spirals – This Is Money
Naughty corner: Active antics
Should investors take another look at the rebounding property sector? – T.I.M.
Japan’s dividend and buyback surge – Verdad
Betting on GLP-1 – Market Sentiment
Palantir’s valuation is insane – Sherwood
Buffett’s intangible moats – Sparkline Capital
An interview with renowned short-opportunity spotter Mark Hiley – FT
Kindle book bargains
The New, New Thing by Michael Lewis – £0.99 on Kindle
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell – £0.99 on Kindle
The Everything Store: The Age of Amazon by Brad Stone – £0.99 on Kindle
Essentialism by Greg McKeown – £1.99 on Kindle
Or try one of the all-time investing classics – Monevator shop
Environmental factors
How can we negotiate with autocracies on the climate crisis? – Guardian
Gene editing could save species on the brink of extinction – The Conversation
Why Filipinos keep getting married in flooded churches – BBC
In Ukraine’s bombed-out reservoir, a huge forest has grown – Guardian
The right is waging war on climate-conscious investing – The Atlantic [h/t A.R.]
How plastic industry swamped vital global treaty talks – Guardian
Robot overlord roundup
OpenAI and UK sign deal to use AI in public services – BBC
The hater’s guide to the AI bubble – Ed Zitron
Gaps in our knowledge of ancient Rome could be filled by AI – BBC
Content and community – Stratechery
ChatGPT advises women to ask for lower salaries, study finds – The Next Web
Not at the dinner table
About that US-Japan deal – Paul Krugman
CBS’ cancelling of The Late Show looks political – Daring Fireball
Biting the Fed that feeds you – Sherwood
The anti-immigration backlash comes to Japan – Noahpinion
Fascism and first-time founders – Tech Dirt
Life is (increasingly) luck mini-special
The Ovarian lottery – A Wealth of Common Sense
Zero-sum thinking and the labour market – Kyla Scanlon
Off our beat
Should old home movies be canned? – Next Avenue
The sinister truth at the heart of the Coldplay kiss story – Guardian
If GLP-1 drugs are so good, should we all be on them? – Derek Thompson
Tales from the island of illness – More To That
The rise and rise of country music – Stat Significant
Seeing the lottery – Seth Godin
And finally…
“If you’re the first out of the door, it’s not called panicking.”
– John Tuld, Margin Call
Like these links? Subscribe to get them every Saturday. Note this article includes affiliate links, such as from Amazon and Interactive Investor.
- It takes more than a full working day to compile it, and for my trouble I’m advised Monevator is probably penalised for hosting what looks like a link farm. So it actually hurts our traffic! [↩]
A big thank you for the great content. I can’t even imagine the amount I have saved on financial advice from what I have learnt from these pages. And taking a hands on approach means that I actually have confidence in what I’m doing – I’m not sure I am comfortable to just accept “I am a professional and everything looks good” from a financial advisor.
Just a note, I originally stayed away from the Moguls subscription as I don’t want to be dragged to the dark side, however there’s some amazing not-active-investing content there which might be worth highlighting e.g. the discretionary trusts article.
Thanks for doing what you do, Monevator crew. There was a good interview with the CEO of the Atlantic about AI and the future of the media:
https://www.exponentialview.co/p/ai-and-the-future-of-media-nick-thompson
Present company excepted, people are blurring hobbies and hustles. What we’ve seen is people’s failure to turn a hustle into a sustainable business. What the capricious tech gods giveth, they can also take away. The core of an online business should be the website, and email list – ie stuff you own. Any other income or traffic from other platforms should be treated as gravy as it will likely end up enshittified by their owners so they too can maximise their return.
Not every passion has to end up making money (or even washing its face), or getting tons of eyeballs and likes to feel valuable. I don’t ride a bike, and think maybe I should monetise it with ads or go out running, hoping for applause from the crowds I pass.
Think also a dose of collective reason in the influencer-sphere needs to be applied. I probably read a dozen or so blogs, and listen to another dozen or so podcasts, and the same again of video channels. All extort me to pay them each $10/month. I might pay them $10/month in total, but I’m never going to spend $300+/month on content.
@Oninion — Thanks so much for the positive comments, and for being a Mogul supporter!
Yes, that Finumus article and the comments were pretty amazing. (I can say that because I didn’t write it haha. I’d love to run more of his writing, but alas he’s busy being a high-powered captain of finance on the 9-5).
@G — Cheers for thoughts. I’m not blind to the practical/cumulative implications of multiple subscriptions, but I would point out our Mavens membership currently works out at less than £3 a month on an annual membership. Obviously people will have to decide what that content (and the wider near-2000 free posts supported by membership) is worth, that’s a personal decision.
To be clear though the days of Monevator being a few hours a week side-hobby were long ago. (My new property newsletter is definitely just that!)
Writing today’s style of Monevator articles basically takes at least a day, and some of TA’s with the number-crunching and so forth take 2-3 days or more.
My Moguls ones take at least a week, when you take into account the background research and so forth.
And yet writing is the least of it nowadays! I can easily spend a couple of full days working on Monevator without writing anything. Admittedly some — perhaps a fair bit — of this is related to monetisation, in that it’s related to member support stuff, affiliate partners, or whatnot.
But vast amounts of it is comment moderation, reader email follow-up, and the like.
When you have a site that attracts a couple of million of visitors a year and many thousands of email subscribers, it’s a lot of work, basically.
I agree we have no divine right to exist and people can and will make their own minds up. Clearly most people don’t pay for most content on the Internet. I’m acutely aware I only pay subscriptions/similar for a fraction of what I read.
But make no mistake, you are paying for all that stuff you think you’re getting for free.
Google is a $2.2trillion company on the back of hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue. A lot of that is it’s cloud business, but a vast share is advertising revenue that has basically been transferred from the media industry to Google’s bottom line.
That’s why we used to have vibrant local newspapers and bulging magazines and a vast Cambrian explosion of independent websites which have all now gone to the wall.
Again, whether this matters to any particular individual is a personal thing. But I don’t think the media industry was equivalent to someone going on a bike ride for their own fun, and I don’t think people really understand what we’re losing (or have lost).
Thank goodness we have the BBC and the license fee to pay for it in this country. That shouldn’t be the controversial statement modern politics has turned it into, but the fact all political sides are annoyed with it is a good sign it’s still doing something right.
Hi TI! I’ve been reading your articles and the weekend links for a decade now and this is my first time commenting. I just wanted to say thank you and I am going to sign up today. I’d not given much thought to how Google + AI is making it ever harder for non-corpos to reach a new audience online.
A rare hello from one of those that reads the content from here by mailing list rather than the website… just to confirm we exist! (I don’t even remember the last time I opened the site!).
Ignoring the issues with search results, rankings, and AI search summaries, it’s hard to tell these days what’s a real blog made by humans rather than AI generated content. Feels like the real ones have already mostly gone.
>To some extent Google’s apparent capriciousness was well-intentioned, as it’s fought to outrun spam sites and AI slop, and other gaming of the system.
Google gave up and accepted SEO years ago, roughly when Matt Cutts left. Part of the problem is the fact that they have both search and display ads so even if you didn’t click on an add when you searched you are still presented with Google ads at the destination site.
What’s happening now is they are biting the hand that feeds them. Who is going to create content when they know it’s going to be gobbled up by some tech company and regurgitated for $20 a month.
Personally I’ve pretty much done with Google, I keep my documents local rather than online, most of my searches start at wikipedia or stack overflow and those that don’t go to Kagi a paid search service.
I’ve also stopped producing open source for much the same reason, I don’t want my hard work co-opted by some huge faceless corporation.
Is substack one way out of this problem?
“I knew it in my heart. You can buck the system but you can’t buck the dark forces that lie hidden beneath the surface.” (Bob Hughes, played by Matt Dillon).
Google and Meta are the Weyland-Yutani and Tyrell Corporations made real. 🙁
They’re the leading dystopian extraction mechanisms, funnelling ‘content’ one way, and ads and misinformation the other, all whilst carrying out algorithmic PysOps on a scale even PKD and Gibson could scarcely have conceived of. Parting writers from the financial fruits of their works, which are then mechanically and methodically mixed up, regurgitated and recycled by the corporate bot hordes.
They’ve done more than anyone to ruin the 1990s Brave New World of the internet ‘information superhighway’, just as Altman and Musk will surely ruin, and forestall, the liberating potential of AI.
“Don’t be evil” must have been meant sarcastically.
You can buck system, but not the primary trend which both underlies and drives it.
The dark forces of the enshitifiers can’t be compromised with, nor assuaged.
Time to strike out on your own 🙂 Good luck!
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/26/why-early-retirement-isnt-good-for-uk-plc
Wow! The above came too late for your links, but might raise some hackles!
“Giving up work in your 50s is a wealthy indulgence that should be discouraged – the new pension commission needs to widen its remit”
@Delta Hedge #8
> the liberating potential of AI
Eh? What liberating potential?
> then mechanically and methodically mixed up, regurgitated and recycled by the corporate
botAI hordes.fixed that for you 😉 Other than this minor detail I’m with the general trend you identified.
@BBlimp #10: this problem with Google search long post dates the Referendum dramas. Many creators in multiple jurisdictions report problems in the last 2 years.
@ermine #11: “The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently” David Graeber. AI could be great. It could be Ian M Banks’ “the Culture”. But, sadly, that’s just not going to happen. It’s either going to be p(doom) or p(disappointing). We’re trusting the future to the likes of Zuckerberg and Altman. This won’t end well, even if we make it to the otherside of whatever’s coming down the pipeline for us.
@Pendle Witch #9, Phillip Inman (author) certainly doesn’t believe in freedom! Wow!! Infuriating stuff …
In view of the dire warnings about the state of the UK economy, and the bond market, I’d be interested to know where readers are holding their ‘safe’ allocations?