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The internet is slipping out of our reach

injuly.in

21–30 of 135 posts

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#21

That is definitely true about search. Google ruined it, like they ruin most things. The more hand-curated style of the old Yahoo was far superior. Yes, Google was superior in search in the short-term, but their automated algorithms came with the inevitable attachment of the future of gaming their algorithms. The modus operandi of Google is to provide a highly-centralized automated service that at first appears superi…

“It will be gamed. No exceptions.”

Any designer of marketplaces, search, social anything, laws and regulations, etc needs to remember that principle. Any system will be exploited for its edge cases and emergent behaviors if there is any profit of any kind (even just attention or lulz) in doing so.

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#22
It's essentially the phenomenon of less genetic diversity as massive repetitive inbreeding takes over. SEO, AI, etc. are streamlined cultures made to maximize attraction and revenue, akin to over breeding a once successful genetic trait in an environment to the point at which it becomes a detriment to the organism/group.

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#23

> If you searched Google for a movie review in 2005, you'd get a review. Today, you get paid search results, ads, third-party cookies, trackers, newsletter prompts, notification requests, and, if you're lucky – a movie review. No matter what you search for, SEO-hacked content farms will blot out the sun. This resonates, but I tried it, and it looks false. On both kagi and google, for both an old and a new movie (find…

Good catch!

I had originally written "travel plans"/"workout routine", but changed it to "movie reviews".

If you try to plan a trip to Dubai with Google, the first 4 posts are sponsored. With workout routines, The first post for me has ads + newsletter prompt + notification access request.

I should change it back :)

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#24

That is definitely true about search. Google ruined it, like they ruin most things. The more hand-curated style of the old Yahoo was far superior. Yes, Google was superior in search in the short-term, but their automated algorithms came with the inevitable attachment of the future of gaming their algorithms. The modus operandi of Google is to provide a highly-centralized automated service that at first appears superi…

Is this satire?

No. I simply believe that the internet would be superior as a basic service with very limited corporate involvement. I believe the internet would be superior if it were like a basic, government-supplied service so that websites would be created by individuals, and small to medium-sized businesses. It would be more democratic, and it would not have the same problems created by massive networks. No Twitter, no Facebook, no Google.

Yes, we would not have certain "cool" features like Google Earth, but I still think the world would be superior without large-scale corporate involvement and without AI-created pure trash.

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#25
Google will not be interested in fixing search. It also may not be possibile because of ai spam. They would like to invest in deep mind/bard/gemini than to fix technology that will be obsolete in a few years.

I have started scanning domains to see how many different places there are in the internet. Spoiler: Not many.

We could try to create curated open databases for links, forums, places, and links, but in ai era it will always be a niche.

Having said that I think that it is a good thing. If it is a niche it will not be spoiled by normal users expecting simple behavior, or corporations trying to control the output.

Start your blog

Start your curated lists of links.

Control your data. Share your data.

Link https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#26
post #21

That is definitely true about search. Google ruined it, like they ruin most things. The more hand-curated style of the old Yahoo was far superior. Yes, Google was superior in search in the short-term, but their automated algorithms came with the inevitable attachment of the future of gaming their algorithms. The modus operandi of Google is to provide a highly-centralized automated service that at first appears superi…

“It will be gamed. No exceptions.” Any designer of marketplaces, search, social anything, laws and regulations, etc needs to remember that principle. Any system will be exploited for its edge cases and emergent behaviors if there is any profit of any kind (even just attention or lulz) in doing so.

Yes but the incentive to game something is significantly reduced if it is not fast, not centralized, and doesn't have a large audience.

You cannot deny that having a huge, million+ global audience makes gaming MORE lucractive. With small, indepedent websites, none of which have a massive audience, gaming and scams are much less worth a scammer's time.

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#27
post #14

This reads to me like a rant. Good material for a blog post but I don't think there is anything particularly profound going on. The internet is not a static place, and parts are always being born and dying. Maybe today is going to be Google search. There was an interesting question early on in the internet of whether content would be aggregated by corporate entities or whether people would self-host and communicate p…

> This reads to me like a rant

It was. I agree with most of what you said.

> I don't even think communities retreating to Discord is a bad thing.

I don't dislike discord myself, but don't like the fact that most of it closed off. You don't get to see what's inside a server before creating an account and joining it.

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#29

Poor title. This has nothing to do with the internet but everything to do with the culture a lot of people has adapted to. You don't have to use Google or Reddit. Or ChatGPT. It's a choice. It's up to the individual to make that choice by applying some thinking. So the title could be "Thinking is slipping out of our reach".

Yeah, and if you want a movie review and don't know where to find it, just go door-to-door and ask strangers if they watched the movie and what they thought of it. Do it in different countries to get different opinions too.

I wish there was a way to get the same results in less than 3 years per movie... Wait

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#30
post #9

Another victim of LLM-'enhanced' search results is serendipity. Many times I've found random, fun and unrelated websites from mistyping a query. Now the AI tries to guess what I meant and adjusts the search results, meaning such gems are lost.

For serendipity, try https://search.marginalia.nu ?
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