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Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

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Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#141

Post by caetris1 »

Avamander wrote: post #128
caetris1 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet is arguably* terrible today. There are about four websites that most people visit each and every day. And of those four websites, they're most likely owned by one or all of the five largest tech companies. Before social media, people built their own websites just to put their art out there. Now everything runs through a walled garden, and to your point, it's easier to tweet than to go build a website no…

> It's easier to tweet than to go build a website no one will visit. It might be easier, but it depends on your target audience how effective it is.

That's a really good point.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#142

Post by threatofrain »

chrisco255 wrote: post #43

In my opinion, "the Feed" ruined the internet. The news feed, the Twitter feed, the Reddit feed, etc. The addictive nature of the Feed, and the tendency to reward dramatic or outrageous or ridiculous content leads to the herd mentality and mindless dogpiling that occurs on these platforms. And then, because expression is compressed into short form soundbites, pics and videos, the platforms actively inhibit constructi…

The feed competes against all the learning resources on the internet. Perhaps people in general are just tired and looking for banter, because the non-banter, however a minority, is completely discoverable.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#143

Post by threatofrain »

neutronicus wrote: post #98
chrisco255 wrote: post #43

In my opinion, "the Feed" ruined the internet. The news feed, the Twitter feed, the Reddit feed, etc. The addictive nature of the Feed, and the tendency to reward dramatic or outrageous or ridiculous content leads to the herd mentality and mindless dogpiling that occurs on these platforms. And then, because expression is compressed into short form soundbites, pics and videos, the platforms actively inhibit constructi…

I think Podcasts are mainly popular because you can consume them in the car on the way to work.

Sounds if self-driving vehicles ever take off, we'll be back to video.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#144

Post by krapp »

caetris1 wrote: post #138
krapp wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Before social media, people built their own websites just to put their art out there. Now everything runs through a walled garden, and to your point, it's easier to tweet than to go build a website no one will visit. And yet there is more content on the web, of greater variety and higher quality, than there ever was on that old web. Youtube is a walled garden, but some of what's on there is brilliant, and there's ce…

The internet is definitely, and I still stand by this comment, unarguably terrible today, compared to what it used to be. Is that anyone's fault? Probably not. People used to download MP3s from AOL chat rooms. There were these people that just served up their music libraries using a chat bot for other people to request downloads. Once you had enough tracks, you could serve up your own bot to let others share in on th…

>People used to download MP3s from AOL chat rooms. There were these people that just served up their music libraries using a chat bot for other people to request downloads.

>Once you had enough tracks, you could serve up your own bot to let others share in on the fun.

And nowadays people torrent. It's not as if piracy and file sharing are dead or anything.

But I think you're really saying the web is terrible for you, because it no longer resembles what you used to enjoy, and because other people use it in ways you don't find interesting. And that's valid for you, but it's a subjective opinion, not objective fact.

Personally, I'm happy giving up downloading random mp3s from the web to have the depth of content and interactivity the modern web offers. But I care more about content than culture.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#145

Post by kmstout »

midef wrote: post #71
voz_ wrote: post #59

The author had a few bad queries and chalks the whole thing up to "Google Ruined the Internet". This is akin to having a bad experience with airline food and declaring that flying has ruined travel. It is absurd, it reeks of the stallman-esque style of negative, borderline luddite spew. Instead of offering a solution, this person just rants. Google has been a pivotal center of the internet - information has never bee…

"information has never been easier to find!" I think it depends what you're looking for. I realize this is obscure, but I can't find any reference online to a big Facebook Platform developers' conference that happened in 2007. It drives me nuts because I was there at Chelsea Piers with 1,000 people, but it's like it never existed.

Was it this?

https://web.archive.org/web/20080808121324/http://www.facebo...

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#146

Post by caetris1 »

caetris1 wrote: post #138
krapp wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Before social media, people built their own websites just to put their art out there. Now everything runs through a walled garden, and to your point, it's easier to tweet than to go build a website no one will visit. And yet there is more content on the web, of greater variety and higher quality, than there ever was on that old web. Youtube is a walled garden, but some of what's on there is brilliant, and there's ce…

The internet is definitely, and I still stand by this comment, unarguably terrible today, compared to what it used to be. Is that anyone's fault? Probably not. People used to download MP3s from AOL chat rooms. There were these people that just served up their music libraries using a chat bot for other people to request downloads. Once you had enough tracks, you could serve up your own bot to let others share in on th…

You're right. Thanks.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#148

Post by colechristensen »

Alternative thread:

Google shapes the Internet and that shape leaves many things in ruins.

Google shapes the Internet by motivating so many people to produce content to make money through advertising. Most people make virtually nothing, a few people make a lot. There is an enormous amount of content on the internet whose driving purpose of making money is secondary to that of sharing something with the world.

Google shapes the Internet through it's algorithm. Ever read or angrily scroll through pages of BS when trying to find a recipe? The only reason anyone does that is for google. My grandmother's recipe for deviled eggs was stored on an index card in a box on the stove. I bet it didn't have 200 bytes of data. A search algorithm can't do much with that so everybody has to add a grand story about their grandmother, her toenails, and how nice a vacation to the Balkans was which nobody ever actually took. It also has to be on top to force people to spend more time on the site, so they're more "engaged".

I just want to know a good amount of time to hard boil eggs in an instant pot, but fuck me for wanting to know the number of minutes. "Organizing information" became being as much of an impediment as possible and directing me to the winner of the SEO race.

Before Internet advertising was so popular people would put things out there much more just because they wanted to, not for some profit motive. Now everybody doing that is doing it on somebody else's platform, making somebody else money, and often tracking everybody who comes past.

Much of the ruins are "caused" by Google, because Google won the race, next in line would have done the same thing. Probably.

It occasionally brings up the question of how to fix it. That probably requires new transport layers, new browsers, and well chosen limitations. Doubtful it would get off the ground. Decentralized solutions tend to get overwhelmed with extremely unsavory things. A new "browser" based on an entirely different stack would be hard to compete, especially if your goal was eliminating ads and tracking and general money-grubbing.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#149

Post by BalinKing »

jrockway wrote: post #47

> Search for "GM" and the Gmail homepage ranks prominently. Is Google pushing its own products on people? Well, yes, but not here. This is an example of a query refinement algorithm at work. Google is altering its results in recognition of the fact that many people who search "gm" subsequently search for "gmail." I tried this and there are three news articles about General Motors, an infobox for General Motors, 4 sea…

Just as an anecdote, DDG also suggested Gmail as the first result for me (past the news carousel, ofc).

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#150

Post by l0b0 »

I really wish there still existed a search engine which would absolutely, without reservation of any sort, simply respect the quote and minus operators. I searched both DDG and Google this morning for something with a minus operator, and the search results for both included the unwanted keyword in the bloody page title. And no, quotes never ever meant "search for similar terms", but the big players now just ignore all the syntax the power users have been used to for decades. Luckily the "site:" prefix still seems to work, but for how long?
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