Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally disagree, LLMs are so much better than search engines ever were.
That kind of proves the point: the internet is more than LLMs and search engines.
Yeah, it's also cryptocurrency and NFT's
/s
Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
151–160 of 503 posts
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
N'ah, I remember that era. Search engines were basically worthless. Google was the first one to get the formula right. Before Google, search engines were basically just doing keyword matching and so you'd have the issue that every search for a programming topic landed you on expertsexchange. Google was the first to start leveraging click-away signal, and they were able to successfully down-sample keyword-farmers like…
Search engines were bad in the 90's, but the web was much smaller and community-driven. Most of the websites people visited were created by individuals and people linked to each other to form web rings.
I remember.
It was the worst. Crawling a ring all day to find useful content was incredibly inconvenient.
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#153Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? It's a mutually beneficial relationship. I'm a bit puzzled as to why this was pushed, I'd love some context for this.
On one hand, yes, it drives traffic. On the other hand, no, because lots of people just read headlines and maybe they can do that without clicking. But realistically this the current Canadian government trying to shake down google and facebook for money to transfer to the ailing news industry in canada. The merits of the position for a link tax are pretty bad, and don’t really matter to the issue at hand. The governm…
>> because lots of people just read headlines and maybe they can do that without clicking.
I agree; I'd argue you don't have much of a valuable service if all users need is a headline. Print media needs to give up the traditional shallow breadth fueled by advertising and go niche, and go deep. Cable TV should learn this lesson as well.
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I search for something I want the best results for the query, and sometimes those are behind a paywall.
Checkbox, unchecked by default: [ ] I want to see results from sites I'd have to pay to access
The obvious problem to this armchair expert "solution" is that Google doesn't know what I am already paying. I pay NYT for a subscription, but Google doesn't know that. For obvious privacy reasons users don't want to tell Google what sites they already have subscriptions with. And I don't even log in to Google to do a search so there's no place to store that information even if I actively wanted to provide that to Google.
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#155Can someone ELI5 the argument for the bill? My impression is it's something like "news websites provide content that creates engagement which drives ad revenue, and the news websites want a piece of that revenue." Is my understanding correct? Also, I can see how it applies for Facebook, how does it apply to Google?
That's basically the issue. And Google because Google News.
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#156Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically targeting Google and Meta. Sometimes taking the simple view is correct: It's a bad thing to prevent sites from linking to one another. It's a bad thing to interfere with the ability to access information on the Internet for reasons of nationalist politics.
> Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically targeting Google and Meta. It's not just a matter of the targeted companies being Google and Meta, even though these two especially deserve it. It's the simple realization that good journalism requires good money, and that the current balance between news organizations and internet brokers isn't u…
>While Canada's bill may not be well-tuned, it is a welcome first attempt.
The problem is media companies have been pushing this exact blueprint for d years. decades. It is a terrible, terrible template.
If countries want to tax big tech and give the money to media organizations, they should be honest about it. Laws like this distort reality.
>the current balance between news organizations and internet brokers isn't up to the task.
This doesn't make sense. Newspapers want links to their stories. I've even seen media organization paying "internet brokers" to advertise stories.
The law has the economics of the internet backwards. To receive a link is to benefit, everyone knows this except the government.
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically targeting Google and Meta. It's not just a matter of the targeted companies being Google and Meta, even though these two especially deserve it. It's the simple realization that good journalism requires good money, and that the current balance between news organizations and internet brokers isn't u…
There's no imbalance here: newspapers produce content, search engines/social networks surface and link to it. What's happening here is that publishers and their owners somehow figured these pesky internet wiz kids owe them more money.
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Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#158Now that I'm weaning myself off of reddit, my favorite "toilet reading" is news.google.com
But since I'm in Canada, I suppose I'll go back to RSS or maybe AP news.
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#159The eff had an interesting article[1] about this issue (and others) as well as some alternative ways solve the issue, not that I agree with all of them. Ultimately, this is the wrong approach. The internet should be "open," and people or companies should be free to link to whatever they want without penalty. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech
While I agree with them, it's important to note that the EFF is very pro-big tech and is largely funded by them.
> it's important to note that the EFF is very pro-big tech and is largely funded by them.
I find that a puzzling comment. EFF has a strange way of showing its allegiance to "Big Tech".
What do I not know? How does the EFF demonstrate its allegiance to them?
I took the EFF's work on privacy as an impediment to "Big Tech"'s business model. How am I wrong?
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#160Can someone ELI5 the argument for the bill? My impression is it's something like "news websites provide content that creates engagement which drives ad revenue, and the news websites want a piece of that revenue." Is my understanding correct? Also, I can see how it applies for Facebook, how does it apply to Google?
Not to argue in favour of the bill, but I think the idea is Google's whole business model relies on others for content, so a slice of that revenue should go to the content creators (even though the content creators gain from Google, and can generate their own ad revenues).
The Liberal party is also trying to protect Canadian content (again, not to defend or advocate for this policy), and I'm sure this is part of it, even though it may ironically backfire and end up hurting Canadian news outlets.