Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

Post by TerrifiedMouse » Sun, Oct 15, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #275

onion2k wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm struggling to think of a site I use regularly that could function without either adverts or someone else (businesses, donations, or the site owner) putting money to fund it, and I honestly can't think of one. The modern internet just wouldn't function if we took entrepreneurship out of it.

Better than ads, sites can make money by selling products and services. A website with information on gardening, that also sells the equipment and seeds you need. A website with travel information that also sells tours. A website with any programming and IT information that also sells software. These kind of sites make much better money than ad and affiliate sites, but people haven't understood it yet. The online ad…

Post by matheusmoreira » Sun, Oct 15, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

mycologos wrote: post #229

matheusmoreira wrote: post #157

I agree but the root cause isn't Google, it's advertising in all its forms, Google's ads just happen to be the most profitable ones. Kill advertising and the web will be fixed automatically and permanently. Using uBlock Origin is everyone's duty towards a better web. It should come pre-installed in Firefox.

> Kill advertising and the web will be fixed automatically and permanently Is the implicit logic here "kill advertising and the web will be like what it was before widespread advertising: mostly for and by nerds"?

Post by electrondood » Sun, Oct 15, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

Post by MaxBarraclough » Sun, Oct 15, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

speleding wrote: post #235

amiga386 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track and it did not work. Surveillance capitalism is just worth too much to websites to even pay lip service to user privacy. The only thing that works is having your user-agent mercilessly chop the survelliance shit out of web pages. Don't evaluate it, don't render it. Because thw websites will forever be hostile to your interests while they can enrich themselves by dat…

I'm aware of that header, but respecting it is voluntary, which is highly unlikely to work if there is a strong monetary incentive not to comply. It's also pretty coarse. I may want to allow a site I like to collect analytics to help them out, I may even want a search engine to keep track of my behaviour to give me better results. Just an on/off, where IE has set the default to off, was never going to work.

Post by Akronymus » Sun, Oct 15, 2023, 2:31 PM UTC

NL807 wrote: post #199

dalbasal wrote: post #121

"Search results plagued with ‘clickbait’ would have been an understatement 20 years ago. The parts of the open web you access from Google/search (most of it) is almost entirely made-for-google' ranking algorithims. The situation is worse than it is on closed social media, including Google's YouTube. Professional YouTubers are also making content for rankings above all, but the fact that it's their own face/voice keep…

I'm rather shocked how the quality of their search results has tanked over the years. I used to be able to find decent academic content, or programming related topics quite consistently 5 years ago. Now I'm getting only a few vague results either from stackoverflow, math stackexchange, reddit, or apple, and the rest is just utter garbage. Yandex, of all search engines provide consistently better results. Fortunately,…