tri777 reached out to me with the below image and observation that there were many "Guests" viewing old threads (like 9 years old in this example)
I checked the logs and found in this case it was AmazonBot, which is basically for Alexa and AI training.
It got me to thinking... AI training does not benefit HBC in any way. They are basically using our resources to improve their own products and make money. We get nothing in return for that. Further to AI training, they essentially use our content/posts for their own gain.
Think for example someone asks ChatGPT a question "Tell me some good blacktail hunting tactics in BC" and ChatGPT responds basically with information it has learned from our site as its "own knowledge" without any referral, reference or credit. It's not like a search engine (which are mutually beneficial) where it crawls our site and sends visitors (potential new members) to our site. It's a parasitic relationship, using our resources to benefit themselves by turning it into their product and making money off it.
Below is a list of what has been blocked so far. This is in addition to other abusive hosts/organizations that were blocked previously at a firewall level for flooding our site. I see the number of "Guests" on the site is much lower now and that we are using less bandwidth and other resources. This list will probably grow. I don't expect any impact, but if you notice anything ("hey caddis my Alexa won't read me HBC posts anymore" -- doubt that was ever a thing) let me know.
In April (so far and excluding today) it was 1,322,553
In March, the total was 3,350,650
Not cool.
Websites have plans similar to cell phone plans. You get X amount of data per month. If you exceed it, it either shuts off or you have to pay more money. There is no reason for us to allow these companies to drive up our data usage to build their products. We don't get anything in return and in a way they are somewhat competitive of web forums in general.
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