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Google Declaring War on the Web
391–400 of 466 posts
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#392the cool thing, google is much like meta, the kids see it as something boomers are using. my daughter is 12, whenever I say “google it” she says “that’s very, very funny Dad, you are fun guy.” it’ll take some time until boomers are off google as well (my usage of google is probably at 30% of where it used to be) but their days of “this is where you go to ‘search’” are numbered
What would she use instead?
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and attention does This is an understatement. They weaponized human psychology against us. It’s not remotely an even playing field.
In an alternate universe Google is like the Apple of the internet, where it has a bunch of premium services with the customer at the center. The flip side is that having a Google account is a status symbol, and very few people on Earth can afford it.
There are many ways these services can take shape and that this isn’t simply about watching some ads or not. What Google and the big players engage in is a violent, gross violation of our privacy which they turn around and sell on the open market/hand to their friends/use against your psychology themselves. It’s not just a simple Coke ad during your favorite sport on cable tv anymore and every time you travel to a site you have no realistic way of knowing what is being vacuumed up. We can’t even make an informed decision.
It’s a worthwhile exercise sitting down and thinking about alternatives to this data vacuum/attention economy nonsense that is so harmful for us personally and to our society as a whole.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have seen many recipe websites do the same recently. All the big sites require an account too now.
Do they still have the long winded story about the author's grandfather's apple tree which gave only sour fruits?
That was for SEO/copyright reasons, so I guess not?
This mostly feels like a meme though. Most of the recipes I see have instructions, notes and photos, then a recipe. It's unfortunate that people think of the worst offender and cheer for the death of the independent web.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
man... hacker news is making me sad here. The blatantly obvious stuff that leans left gets upvoted +5 and the blatantly obvious comment made by me directly before this one that leans right is -1. This place used to care more about the correct answer.
Complaining about downvotes used to be uncouth, but whatever. :-) For what it's worth, I'm pretty "left" - at least within the HN bubble - and I like the cut of your jib. I devoutly wish that the broader "right" cared even one iota about anti-trust / anti-monopoly enforcement.
There are plenty of people who care about the underlying concerns that "anti-trust / anti-monopoly enforcement" is trying to correct, but recognize that the only mechanism ever proposed for addressing those concerns usually involves concentrating ever more power into the hands of an even larger and less accountable monopoly.
The biggest error of the "left" in most of these conversations is treating political institutions as something uniquely well-intentioned and competent, rather than understanding them as just another set of institutions in society, subject to the same incentive structures, biases, and errors as everything else.
A lot of skepticism of political interventions doesn't necessarily come from refusal to acknowledge that there is a problem, but rather from the recognition that the proposed solutions often just represent even worse instances of the same sort of problem. I think a lot of the people who've tended to support political intervention may have operated under the naive assumption that giving the federal government expansive power to intervene into our social and economic affairs could only bring net benefit; hopefully, the behavior of the current administration in the US should be something of a wake-up call.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm almost certain there is biblical-level astroturfing happening to make camp (1) much bigger than it really is. Otherwise, Schmidt wouldn't have drowned in a sea of boos at his commencement speech at UA.
Who would be payrolling this astroturfing in group #1?
Perhaps some of the same people and organizations who have poured funding into AI firms that have yet to attain profitability.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
"And what does the money machine eat to shit it out? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty and above all it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits out quantity." -William S. Burroughs
Yes, the craft to mass production pipeline (democratization) is frustrating for the individual craftsman, as has been true for hundreds of years. AI is simply the assembly line for the digital realm. It takes the trendy products of the rich (custom software, McKinsey PowerPoint decks, etc) and mass produces them in the same style so everyone can afford to buy them at Walmart. For things where the exclusivity WAS the…
When all AI-generated code and images are open source/public domain by default, I will agree to your point. Until then, I will keep thinking it is stolen Valor, and that apologist are bootlickers.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#398We abrogated getting traffic to our websites to Google long ago. Mostly because Google was so good at it that the alternatives became significantly less useful. Now that Google is focusing on becoming 'self contained', so to speak, we should find a better way to drive traffic to websites. Ideally one that's not under the control of a single corporation. Anyone miss StumbleUpon?
It feels strange there’s no decentralised search. I know this is likely to do with the nature of the problem, but that hasn’t stopped us from getting some wildly-unsuitable decentralised nonsense in the past.
It is hard to replace the old thing with another old thing. Search engine is already a fine tuned business, new comers will have hard time in it, no matter their tech stack.
It's like trying to raise better horses, while the other side has already built a empire on that and weaponized it.
The way out of here is to find something better than search engine, just like how cars replaced horses. But it's the same reason Google Search is replacing itself with AI too, they're already trying to replace their horses with cars.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do they still have the long winded story about the author's grandfather's apple tree which gave only sour fruits?
That was for SEO/copyright reasons, so I guess not? This mostly feels like a meme though. Most of the recipes I see have instructions, notes and photos, then a recipe. It's unfortunate that people think of the worst offender and cheer for the death of the independent web.
You must know which sites to go to. As a casual, I encounter the SEO spam every single time.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who simultaneously makes music professionally, and works in IT professionally, it has been really interesting watching GenAI unfold, and the diverging cultures around it. It is almost like the world is splitting into two "societies": 1. One that loves AI + Big Business + very fast Innovation and disruption 2. One that loves Artisanal work + Small Business + slower but more sustainable innovation I personal…
I'm almost certain there is biblical-level astroturfing happening to make camp (1) much bigger than it really is. Otherwise, Schmidt wouldn't have drowned in a sea of boos at his commencement speech at UA.
The graduation messages along the lines of well done for studying years but it's redundant because AI can do that might well get booed without any astroturf.