When I heard about what CNET is doing to their old articles it strikes me as to how relying solely on SSO is a bit of a looser’s game. Ok, I might not be your typical web user, but I almost never look for the latest news by making a web-search. I visit or subscribe to sites that I trust, that have a good user experience, and don’t bombard me with crummy ads.
I haven’t visited CNET for a while but seeing them do this this, along the crazy idea of using AI to generate stories, it’s clear that they’re not interesting in building up trust, instead going for the get-top-search-ranking-and-stuff-me-full-of-ads business model. That might get people to click once or twice, but why would they come back? I can’t imagine web users not learning that CNET’s articles are not worth the crappy user experience.