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Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Its mission is not to funnel traffic to intermediaries w

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Its mission is not to funnel traffic to intermediaries who can serve ads and skim a penny off the world's hunger for information. If the question gets answered without clicking through to wikipedia, that's better for everybody, including Wikimedia who don't have to pay to serve the query.

t0mbstone 11y ago
Wikipedia doesn't show ads.
- rimantas 11y ago
  And I think he got Wikipedia and Google mixed up :).
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  That's debatable, depending on how you feel about Yet Another Urgent Appeal From Jimmy Wales, or the difference between advertising and NPR pledge drives.
codezero 11y ago
This sounds good in practice, but most web infrastructures don't pay per page-load. It's possible to do this to some extent, but typically, a number of servers sit un-utilized, but paid for nonetheless. Also, Google displays their own ads in these results, so it's not like visitors who may go to a site with ads are somehow relieved of this annoyance by using Google.
mcphage 11y ago
> Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Its mission is not to funnel traffic to intermediaries There's a difference between organizing the world's information, and becoming the source of the world's information. Traditionally Google has been a card catalog—you want to find something, they'll tell you where to find it. Now they're trying to become the encyclopedia. > that's better for everybody, including Wikimedia who don't have to pay to serve the query If you're a site that makes money via serving webpages, then preventing you from serving those web pages costs money, not saves money.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  The mere existence of some site that serves an answer should not prevent another site from simply giving the answer itself, instead of a referral to the other place.
  - mcphage 11y ago
    It's not just that Google is giving an answer—it's that Google is taking the other site's answer displaying that. So the other site gets no ad revenue for producing the answer, and the reader gets none of the surrounding context, nor do they gain any familiarity with or trust of the actual source.
    - thrownaway2424 11y ago
      What's the underlying principle that requires one to proxy questions through to the place where one originally learned the answer? If I ask you "how far is it from here to Chicago" are you going to just tell me, or are you going to tell me that I can find out in the Rand McNally Deluxe Road Atlas 2016?
      - mcphage 11y ago
        > What's the underlying principle that requires one to proxy questions through to the place where one originally learned the answer? The underlying principle is "Am I an organizer of information, or a source of information?" Or for how content sources will look at it: "Do they help people find me, or do they compete against me by stealing my content and my customers?"
        thrownaway2424 11y ago
        The name of the Mayor of Johannesburg, or the atomic mass of nitrogen, are not yours to appropriate. You have no claim on these facts, even if they are written down on your web page.
        mcphage 11y ago

t0mbstone 11y ago

Wikipedia doesn't show ads.

rimantas 11y ago
And I think he got Wikipedia and Google mixed up :).
thrownaway2424 11y ago
That's debatable, depending on how you feel about Yet Another Urgent Appeal From Jimmy Wales, or the difference between advertising and NPR pledge drives.

codezero 11y ago

This sounds good in practice, but most web infrastructures don't pay per page-load. It's possible to do this to some extent, but typically, a number of servers sit un-utilized, but paid for nonetheless. Also, Google displays their own ads in these results, so it's not like visitors who may go to a site with ads are somehow relieved of this annoyance by using Google.

mcphage 11y ago

> Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Its mission is not to funnel traffic to intermediaries There's a difference between organizing the world's information, and becoming the source of the world's information. Traditionally Google has been a card catalog—you want to find something, they'll tell you where to find it. Now they're trying to become the encyclopedia. > that's better for everybody, including Wikimedia who don't have to pay to serve the query If you're a site that makes money via serving webpages, then preventing you from serving those web pages costs money, not saves money.

thrownaway2424 11y ago
The mere existence of some site that serves an answer should not prevent another site from simply giving the answer itself, instead of a referral to the other place.
- mcphage 11y ago
  It's not just that Google is giving an answer—it's that Google is taking the other site's answer displaying that. So the other site gets no ad revenue for producing the answer, and the reader gets none of the surrounding context, nor do they gain any familiarity with or trust of the actual source.
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    What's the underlying principle that requires one to proxy questions through to the place where one originally learned the answer? If I ask you "how far is it from here to Chicago" are you going to just tell me, or are you going to tell me that I can find out in the Rand McNally Deluxe Road Atlas 2016?
    - mcphage 11y ago
      > What's the underlying principle that requires one to proxy questions through to the place where one originally learned the answer? The underlying principle is "Am I an organizer of information, or a source of information?" Or for how content sources will look at it: "Do they help people find me, or do they compete against me by stealing my content and my customers?"
      - thrownaway2424 11y ago
        The name of the Mayor of Johannesburg, or the atomic mass of nitrogen, are not yours to appropriate. You have no claim on these facts, even if they are written down on your web page.
      - mcphage 11y ago