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Google is burying the web alive

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Re: Google is burying the web alive

#141

Post by pentagrama »

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…

A good strategy can involve betting on alternative distribution channels beyond search engines. Here are some ideas:

- Newsletters. You own your audience and your list is portable and interoperable.

- PWAs with push notifications. Be careful not to overwhelm users with too many messages. Make opt-out options easy to find.

- Door flyers with QR codes. A return to the basics that can still be effective.

- Social media. Still useful, but its reach and engagement seem to be declining.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#142

Post by ajross »

surgical_fire wrote: post #110
ajross wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah yeah. But nonetheless group think and echo chambers are real things. Not all opinions are uncorrelated data points, probably most of them aren't . And real people (you too) do indeed hold contradictory opinions all the time. In point of fact insisting that "My Opinion Is Pure And Special and Uncorrelated To Anyone Else's" is probably the single best way to find yourself parroting echo chamber delusions. It's a l…

> Yeah yeah. But nonetheless group think That's only your perception of groupthink. You read those threats looking for anti-Google bias, and you find it, because of course. AI is a very divisive subject nowadays. There are people that are all in on the hype, there are skeptics, there are desperate people thinking that they will lose their jobs, there are those that think is is destructive and unethical. The only cave…

> That's only your perception of groupthink. You read those threats looking for anti-Google bias, and you find it, because of course.

Or... maybe it's only your perception. You're engaged in groupthink and read headlines looking for Google crimes[1], and you find them, because of course. I mean, I'm the one citing evidence (literally the headline we're discussing). Your theory that we're actually seeing a general change in attitudes toward AI in the HN commenter community seems interesting! But... unsupported.

Occam says you're just engaged in apologia for the echo chamber, sorry.

[1] I mean, come on. "Burying the web alive" really seems like reasoned discourse to you? A real rationalist would enter this discussion with a prior that the ridiculous hyperbole is probably wrong, not "let's find ways to make the ridiculous hyperbole more reasonable".

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#143

Post by nicbou »

pentagrama wrote: post #141
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…

A good strategy can involve betting on alternative distribution channels beyond search engines. Here are some ideas: - Newsletters. You own your audience and your list is portable and interoperable. - PWAs with push notifications. Be careful not to overwhelm users with too many messages. Make opt-out options easy to find. - Door flyers with QR codes. A return to the basics that can still be effective. - Social media.…

I am providing information for specific situations. People don’t casually read about replacing lost keys until they lose their keys. It’s not entertainment.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#144

Post by RajT88 »

RobRivera wrote: post #105
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…

We need a new information backbone

That was the idea behind Internet2.

Never used it, maybe someone can explain how it has evolved.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#145

Post by RajT88 »

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…

DDG is perfectly serviceable in ways Google is not.

But - Google owns the household name game. Anyone who does not just use whatever is the browser default quickly switches to Google because they are used to it and conventional wisdom is they are the best.

FWIW in terms of results, Bing is fine, I just fucking hate all the extra shit on the pages. I just want plain text.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#146

Post by droidist2 »

anal_reactor wrote: post #127
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.

I'd like to limit my online time, but I'm so addicted to the internet, even though it's pure garbage nowadays. Any practical tips? It's not about putting away the phone, it's about... the hope that maybe this time I'll read something funny or informative, as I have absolutely no other sources of information or social interaction. "Go out and talk to people" isn't valid advice. It's never been, but in 2025 finally eve…

> "Go out and talk to people" isn't valid advice. It's never been, but in 2025 finally even the mainstream is slowly admitting that this doesn't work.

Why doesn't it work?

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#147

Post by surgical_fire »

ajross wrote: post #142
surgical_fire wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah yeah. But nonetheless group think That's only your perception of groupthink. You read those threats looking for anti-Google bias, and you find it, because of course. AI is a very divisive subject nowadays. There are people that are all in on the hype, there are skeptics, there are desperate people thinking that they will lose their jobs, there are those that think is is destructive and unethical. The only cave…

> That's only your perception of groupthink. You read those threats looking for anti-Google bias, and you find it, because of course. Or... maybe it's only your perception. You're engaged in groupthink and read headlines looking for Google crimes[1], and you find them, because of course. I mean, I'm the one citing evidence (literally the headline we're discussing). Your theory that we're actually seeing a general cha…

> I mean, come on. "Burying the web alive" really seems like reasoned discourse to you?

No, I actually disagree with the rationale. If anything, AI makes it easier to find some quick answers, since Google's top results tend to be shit.

I am very ambivalent towards the current AI hype. I think that the capabilities of LLMs are vastly overrated, even if they are useful to an extent.

That said, this it not to say that I don't think Google was very damaging to the web in many ways, mainly with how it made search so much worse over the years.

> A real rationalist would enter this discussion with a prior that the ridiculous hyperbole is probably wrong

Eh, I can understand that with the more pronounced negativity towards AI nowadays, this sort of rant will become more common. Every thread on AI nowadays has this overall vibe (not without reason).

> Occam says you're just engaged in apologia for the echo chamber, sorry.

Eh, I actually don't think very highly of HN. Plenty of terrible takes on every thread.

This is just a glorified Reddit full of people who really like the smell of their own farts. Why would I defend it?

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#148

Post by WalterBright »

quesera wrote: post #123
WalterBright wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using a private email server for decades now, but it's become clear that none of the email I send using it arrives at its destination. I can receive email with them, but not send.

If this was a sudden and complete change, you may have landed on a spam blacklist.

That's certainly possible. I've had repeated issues over the years with my compilers being identified as "malware" because the object code did not match the Microsoft C runtime library. I.e. the code was not a match for anything in their databases.

Re: Google is burying the web alive

#150

Post by lzy »

This feels like the culmination of a long trend. Google shifting from indexing the web to replacing it. The idea of an “AI answer mode” burying actual sources is worrying, especially for niche or emerging topics where LLMs hallucinate confidently. I’d love to see metrics on how often users click through to original sources under the new interface. At some point, if Google becomes too self-referential, it risks losing the very web it was built on. Curious whether this opens the door for competitors that prioritise raw links and transparency over synthesised summaries.
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