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Who is going to replace Google for us?

michaeldehaan.substack.com

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Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#121

Post by encryptluks2 »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #25
aftbit wrote: post #21

>Here’s the thing that made me write this - I used to load up Google News a lot, I’ve now switched to bookmarks. It’s one thing for promoting junk news sources, but recently I’ve seen them cary both Brietbart (known for historically running a “black crime” section!) and the Epoch Times (a disinformation site being run by an actual cult) spouting absolutely false covid denial. I can’t support this in any way. I’m done…

Brietbart and Epoch Times are the opposite of information. Misinformation run by people maliciously trying to get people to believe falsehoods isn't the same as an information source. And the misinformation networks are quite expertly run, just like blackhat SEO was. Sputnik, Infowards, or NAMBLA shouldn't be on par with the BBC or WaPo and if you think otherwise you maybe should lower your redpill dosages! EDIT: Dow…

And religious organizations in America shouldn't be tax exempt. If you don't like misinformation then don't legitimize psychology since it doesn't treat most religious beliefs as a psychological disorder.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#122

Post by achenet »

cardosof wrote: post #89
croes wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't one specific wealthy family, it's that wealth is always concentrated on few people. Just because a king dies and gets replaced by another king doesn't help the peasants.

Wealth will always be very unequal, see the Mathew principle - just like a few songs have the most listeners and a few books the most readers. And it's hard to stay at the top too, so the elites are always changing. The real issue comes when the really powerful can inflate their and their friends assets at will.

Inequality fluctuates.

Furthermore, I recall reading once that wealth inequality was positively correlated with mental illness, even in the rich of a society.

As such, even if there is always some inequality, I think it is worthwhile to try to reduce it, although by boosting the lower part of scale. In other words, if you live in a world where only the rich have cars, you reduce inequality by making cars for the poor like Henry Ford, not by taking rich people's cars.

In the modern US, I think this would entail making housing and education and healthcare more affordable/accessible.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#123

Post by achenet »

m-i-l wrote: post #96
jmyeet wrote: post #28

The fallacy of youth is that one of extremes. Things are never as bad as they seem. Likewise they're never really as good as they seem. The latter I think explains a lot of nostalgia and holding onto the first "past" we lived through. At the very least it's easy to view that as our baseline. What's "normal", if you will. I say this because as hard as can be to imagine how something like Google will cease to be domina…

> "In 100 years the descendants of Bezos won't be the ruling class in the same way the Vanderbilts, Astors, Rockefellers, Carnegies and Morgans aren't." Andrew Carnegie believed in 100% inheritance tax, on the condition that the money raised was used to provide a level playing field for absolutely everyone to have the same opportunities. I can't imagine many/any of today's billionaires believing this, given that pret…

> I can't imagine many/any of today's billionaires believing this,

Haven't they all signed the Giving Pledge?

> given that pretty much all of them have depended on the backing of generational wealth and the unequal opportunities that gave them to make their fortunes.

While it is true that most of them come from upper-middle class backgrounds, AFAIK the vast majority of the fortunes of Page, Brin, Zuck, Bezos et al. is "self-made" and comes from their companies.

Unless you mean generational wealth as in "they were rich enough to pay for a university that costs $80,000/year", at which point, yeah I could see that.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#124

Post by Zak »

guerrilla wrote: post #112
Zak wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would make Mastodon more appealing for you or the hypothetical user for whom you think it's not that great? The main thing that comes to mind for me would be more people I know in person using it.

I think I agree with that but also I think it needs something like groups like Facebook has. I only want to see gardening stuff today, for example. I do like the whole mood though... it's not the battlefield that Twitter is.

It seems to me that use case is better served by forums, but it would be nice if I could use my Mastodon (or Diaspora, Frendica, Pixelfed, etc...) account as my identity on multiple forums. I don't think it's necessarily desirable for one piece of software to try to do everything, but it's great when different services can talk to each other.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#125

Post by throwaway5752 »

dekhn wrote: post #35
throwaway5752 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brietbart and Epoch Times are the opposite of information. Misinformation run by people maliciously trying to get people to believe falsehoods isn't the same as an information source. And the misinformation networks are quite expertly run, just like blackhat SEO was. Sputnik, Infowards, or NAMBLA shouldn't be on par with the BBC or WaPo and if you think otherwise you maybe should lower your redpill dosages! EDIT: Dow…

WaPo isn't really great, either.

On what basis do you say that? I doubt there are more unbiased and reliable sources of information out there. Since every source of information has bias and will contain mistakes, I am just interested if they are 1) interested in telling me the truth or an agenda or 2) if they are as correct as possible and issue corrections when they are not. WaPo is world class.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#126

Post by visarga »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #103
jmyeet wrote: post #28

The fallacy of youth is that one of extremes. Things are never as bad as they seem. Likewise they're never really as good as they seem. The latter I think explains a lot of nostalgia and holding onto the first "past" we lived through. At the very least it's easy to view that as our baseline. What's "normal", if you will. I say this because as hard as can be to imagine how something like Google will cease to be domina…

Honestly, I think the fallacy is to just believe that Google's dominance will magically end. I have a different take, which is that tech leadership rarely changes in a particular technology , it's just that new technologies arrive that displace the old. Microsoft is still absolutely dominant in desktop operating systems. IBM has 90%+ marketshare in mainframes. Oracle is still the top enterprise database. So we seem t…

Now language models are on the rise. They allow access to information (including verified information from trusted sources) in a more accessible and adaptive format. I think Google isn't happy for losing the ad space but the interface we use to search will improve a lot thanks to big language models. I think they are too expensive to deploy now but will be everywhere soon. LM's will be the new "operating system".

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#127

Post by johnmarcus »

I love how they say "We used to do X on some non-Google sight, it was so fun; but I can't do that on Google - so GoOgLe hAs FaIlEd anD iS BaD."

Why not just use another site, that you know, isn't Google? Like they suggested, you can search Reddit, or you can search Tumbler, or you can find a Facebook group, or where we found this article: Hacker news.

I miss the yesteryear when people didn't expect Google to somehow be the answer to everything on the web. Here's an idea: your fan sights can co-exist as well as Google.

And the irony is, the authors own blog home page uses a dark pattern to try and convince you to subscribe to their newsletter! Talk about ruining the web for commercial purposes!

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#128

Post by binbag »

DDG is fine. They addressed the fuss over them using Yandex as one of many sources particularly for Russian language results. I think we should be a bit more careful to not tar everyone with the same brush. I'd take DDG over Google any day.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#129

Post by Zak »

clairity wrote: post #117
Zak wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of that still exists. It's just harder to find than it used to be because the corporate stuff is so loud. There are a lot of little things that could make the non-corporate internet more appealing to the average person. Why, for example can't I have a shared identity across several independent forums? OpenID came out long ago.

> "...he corporate stuff is so loud." yah, money shouts, it doesn't merely talk. that's a consequence of (implicitly) deciding that money should have a voice in the first place. we explicitly sanction this via a gigantic industry, advertising, in which google has a prominent position. until we collectively decide to deemphasize this whole industry, at least in part by cultivating the small and interesting, the web an…

I think we'll probably always have shouty corporate stuff on the internet, but perhaps we technologists can help bring the rest to a broader audience.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#130

Post by HWR_14 »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #83
HWR_14 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth makes you think the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers and Astors aren't part of the ruling class?

> Upon her death, Vanderbilt left her son, Anderson Cooper, almost her entire estate, which was valued at less than $1.5 million. Gloria Vanderbilt wasn’t ultra wealthy by any means. Lots of retirees from modest backgrounds have $1.5 million upon death. My uncle is a cnc machinist and had a retirement of about a million dollars.

You think the ruling class is only predicated on inherited wealth (at death, ignoring what could be given over a lifetime or via trusts)? Your example is that someone over a million people regularly listen to for an hour each work-night is not part of the ruling class? And that one branch of the family tree that was embroiled in litigation from when she was a minor over her trust and had 4 failed marriages may have only left seven-figures is evidence of total decline?

Meanwhile, the median estate is under $300k and the median bequest is under $100k. The top one percent have seven figure bequests.

Also, she left her fancy NYC condo to someone else, which was probably worth more than the amount she left Anderson. Which actually does put her in line with most Americans, in that their wealth is primarily in a home.

> My uncle is a cnc machinist and had a retirement of about a million dollars.

Retirement or bequest when he died at age 95?

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