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

telegraph.co.uk

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

#371

Post by tim333 »

heresie-dabord wrote: post #177
mobilio wrote: post #21

https://archive.md/fQPTD

Thank you. Let's recognise the irony of your link. The need for ^^^ such services is a symptom of the problem. We are all taking measures to circumvent the rubbish . I don't believe that every link that I click should contribute revenue to any billion-dollar corpocracy. I definitely do not want rubbish content to be intermingled with valid information. This is not the Internet that we want. If an entity wants money f…

I think the main reason for the link is to circumvent the Telegraph's pay wall? In a way we are the problem - if we won't pay then newspapers have to get money for their staff salaries from somewhere.

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

#372

Post by NL807 »

bad_username wrote: post #245
NL807 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

The Russian search engine pops up in the comments whenever Google search quality is discussed here. I am sure this is non-organic astroturfing.

Do your own comparison and see it for yourself. It has nothing to do with astroturfing. Google has become objectively bad at search. The results speak for itself.

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

#374

Post by lacrimacida »

meiraleal wrote: post #347
lacrimacida wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to swing back over walled gardens, they employ behavioral tactics to hook people into certain behaviors. When internet was new it grew organically, these tactics weren’t needed. Now all large platforms do it. Imagine how much effort it would take to unhook people off doomscrolling for example.

Yeah but at the same time, 1% of the internet today is bigger than what I thought it was a huge market 20 years ago, when I started. And now with the new tech available I can reach even a bigger global audience. Big tech became too big even for themselves. Infinite growth is impossible and the capital market will punish them heavily when they stop growing. And they will. This big tech recess might never end. The like…

It is possible it’s the end of an era and when an era ends another one begins. Maybe something good will come out of the ashes but it will take a while…

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

#375

Post by simpaticoder »

ftigis wrote: post #370
simpaticoder wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but we need a name and a recognizable advocacy position. The open web, the indie web, minimalists, even luddites are related terms, but nothing really fits. Then there is the community, the scene - like a webring, but better. Dignified, driven by a simple, solid technical aesthetic, capable, self-sufficient, independent, rational, (classic) liberal, etc. Those are some adjectives I associate with these ideas. I…

web0? Edit: I have not heard of it before this suggestion, but it turns out that this is something that already exists.

That term leads me to a handful of related sites put together by a 2-person web agency in Ireland. It's the right direction!

https://small-tech.org/

https://web0.small-web.org/

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

#376

Post by matheusmoreira »

y42 wrote: post #361
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.

While I agree on on "it isn't Google", I totally disagree on "it's advertising". No, that is too easy. There is a good reason to sell ads on your website to finance your project. This is totally okay. I'm happy to "consume" ads to finance a news site for example. I would even share some personal data to help the website to target the ads. Why not? Why should I rather give away "real money"? You cannot demand free stu…

> Why not?

Because my attention belongs to me. It's not yours to sell to the highest advertising bidder. It's not currency to pay for services with. You're not entitled to it no matter how much free stuff you send me. My attention is part of my cognitive functions and it is literally inalienable. If you try to take it as payment by advertising to me, it will be self defense when I stop you.

> Why should I rather give away "real money"?

You shouldn't. That's why I block ads unconditionally. I know there's absolutely no reason for you or anyone else to leave money on the table by not advertising to people. I also know that paying you not to advertise to me just drives the value of my attention up and makes you want to advertise to me more. There's absolutely no situation in which advertisers would not want to advertise to me. The only possible course of action is to unconditionally and preemptively block them all.

> You cannot demand free stuff without giving something back.

Who's "demanding" anything? You're the one sending people free stuff while hoping they'll look at the ads. There's any number of things they could do, including discarding your ads. You're the one taking on that risk. When it inevitably doesn't work out, it's on you. Don't give away free stuff if you want people to pay for stuff. Have your server return HTTP 402 Payment Required instead of a free webpage.

> The advertising system got sick and everything around polluted.

No, advertising is inherently sick and unethical. Why would you ever listen to anyone trying to sell you anything? They have every incentive in the world to lie to you, manipulate you, overstate the pros and hide the cons. Anything an advertiser says should be doubted based purely on the unresolvable and inherent conflicts of interest associated with them.

Advertising should be literally illegal. It's nothing but noise, audiovisual pollution. There are cities in my country that banned it and the results were great, I want to figure out how to propose similar laws in my own city.

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

#377

Post by allarm »

l33t7332273 wrote: post #281
lovemenot wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point and mostly sympathise. It's relevant to the topic and provides a personal perspective. >> ran by non-native English speakers I feel this clause doesn't help promote your grievance. A big promise of the Web was that it was World-Wide. If a site in say Thailand could exceed say a USA site's quality, all the better. I get that your specific competitors didn't excel - except in ranking. But, in principle…

> If a site in say Thailand could exceed say a USA site's quality For many users, a foundational element of the quality of a website is that is in English; it’s all they speak.

How’s that a non-native speakers problem?

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

#378

Post by thiht »

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…

Non ironically, you might wanna try Tiktok for searches where you want an actual human point of view.

My searches are now split evenly between TikTok, Google with site:reddit.com, ChatGPT and Google with no filter as a last resort. And I really want to give Kagi another try in the coming weeks.

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

#379

Post by allarm »

bad_username wrote: post #245
NL807 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

The Russian search engine pops up in the comments whenever Google search quality is discussed here. I am sure this is non-organic astroturfing.

Are you saying it’s astroturfing because it’s a Russian engine? Nice.

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

#380

Post by toastal »

toastal wrote: post #34
leobg wrote: post #31

Recipe blogs are the most horrible example. The amount of BS you have to scroll through to get to the actual recipe.

Often, I like getting the context & history of a recipe. When researching foreign dishes these things help me understand a lot about what might be acceptable ingredient substitutes.

I guess I’m in the minority. Wow.
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