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Google is burying the web alive

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Re: Google is burying the web alive

#111

Post by tough »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #73
nicbou wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that there is no audience without a third-party platform nowadays. At least not at a scale. Google was the lesser evil, but I still fully expected to get killed by an algorithm update some day. I vowed to ride this website into the ground if I have to. I believe in its value, even if I need a side job to support it.

There is no "nowadays." There never an era of big Internet audiences without third party platforms. The early web only had small audiences, and the reason it worked was that people were okay with that.

You could have a small audience of a few million users, not try to compete with the giants, and still, be serving millions of users (daily)

The internet was a beautiful place

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#112

Post by bsder »

ninth_ant wrote: post #75
treve wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have control over what you use to search the web, but you don't have control over the incentives of publishers, the content of which google used to get big and monetize and is now cannibalizing.

That’s a fair assessment. If the intent of the article was to say that Google is creating an environment which incentivizes publishers to lock away content from scrapers, then that’s probably correct in the medium and long term. But I feel like the market described as being cannibalized here was already in the throes of death thanks to blogspam SEO. For many information categories, in my experience AI results are qui…

> in my experience AI results are quite a bit better than the top-ranked results.

Only because the AI results haven't been infested with ads ... yet.

As soon as the VC lottery stops, the ads will get injected and the AI stuff will quickly go just as bad.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#113

Post by panny »

ninth_ant wrote: post #23

Implicit in this article is the idea that you have to use Google, and that Google Search equals “the web”. I’ll be the boring nerd, I guess, who has to be the one to say there are many other search engines out there. If you don’t like Google (I don’t), or don’t like where they are moving their products (I don’t) — please use a competing search engine. I’ve used DuckDuckGo for years and I don’t miss anything about Goo…

I've been using Brave search and it has had the AI answers for much longer than Google has. I would even go so far as to say Google stole the idea from Brave, but then someone will point out a different search engine that was doing it longer than Brave.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#114

Post by sanderjd »

romaaeterna wrote: post #3

As someone who remembers what the web was like 25 years ago, I have a feeling that they're burying a corpse.

Right?

I'm sure Google deserves some, maybe a lot, of the blame, but the web has just deteriorated steadily over the past 15 years or so and I really don't think it's all their fault.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#115

Post by tmnvix »

I've said this before, but I sincerely believe that a human-curated internet directory would be a great resource. Maybe something along the lines of Yahoo Directory revived? Organised using the dewey system could be useful. A library for the internet.

I'd love to be able to look up something like say 'shoe repair' and find a host of high quality resources such as videos, tutorials, suppliers, etc, all vetted by real people somehow.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#116

Post by bamboozled »

entropie wrote: post #66
bamboozled wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used DuckDuckGo for 3 years, the only thing I found it useful for was the g! bang, in my opinion it wasn’t a good search engine.

What do you use now? I switched to kagi like half a year ago and it does the job but iam still unsure if I want to pay the 20 bucks for that service.

I went back to Google but I’m pretty addicted to Claude with the search plugin. I think it’s insane.

I don’t like the Google AI summary thing because you can’t seem to “converse” with it.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#118

Post by nicbou »

mike_hearn wrote: post #107
nicbou wrote: post #46

I can weigh in on this. I run a small information website ( https://allaboutberlin.com ). My traffic has been growing steadily for 7 years, but now its down 30-ish percent year on year. From what I'm hearing, my competitors (and friends) are having it worse. My main mission is to put new information on the internet. It's harder to do this if AI destroys the economics of it. It's also harder without an audience who pr…

If you want readers more than impact you might want to consider something like a Substack. The paying audience would be smaller, but, it's not crawlable by AI (at least not today). Still, it's a bit ironic that your own website advises people to use bots to get apartments (thus bypassing the work put into the adverts and apartment hunting sites), whilst also decrying bots who would bypass your site. More generally pe…

A walled garden or paywalled website would go completely against the website's ethos. Everything is meant to be free for everyone. "Information wants to be free." Besides, those who stand to benefit the most from that information are the ones who can the least afford it.

The bots are not a solution, they're table stakes. Withholding that information would not do anyone any justice.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#119

Post by nicbou »

qkeast wrote: post #108
mike_hearn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want readers more than impact you might want to consider something like a Substack. The paying audience would be smaller, but, it's not crawlable by AI (at least not today). Still, it's a bit ironic that your own website advises people to use bots to get apartments (thus bypassing the work put into the adverts and apartment hunting sites), whilst also decrying bots who would bypass your site. More generally pe…

>Still, it's a bit ironic that your own website advises people to use bots to get apartments (thus bypassing the work put into the adverts and apartment hunting sites), whilst also decrying bots who would bypass your site. I believe these are pretty different scenarios. There's an ongoing, massive shortage of apartments in Berlin, and bots here often aren't bypassing "work put into adverts and apartment hunting sites…

If you have a zero sum game, any advice you give is creating an arms race. The only solution is to have fewer Berliners or more housing.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#120

Post by nicbou »

ElFitz wrote: post #99
nicbou wrote: post #46

I can weigh in on this. I run a small information website ( https://allaboutberlin.com ). My traffic has been growing steadily for 7 years, but now its down 30-ish percent year on year. From what I'm hearing, my competitors (and friends) are having it worse. My main mission is to put new information on the internet. It's harder to do this if AI destroys the economics of it. It's also harder without an audience who pr…

> He's just not getting paid anymore. Or the credit. Or even just the feedback. Even LLMs get at least some feedback.

This is a surprisingly taxing change. There's a difference between giving free eggs to your neighbours, and giving free eggs to the Holiday Inn across town.
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