4 ms·

What came is what was always coming. From about 2003 (post-dot-com bubble) until about 2013, it was an era of ‘do no evil’. Make the world a better place. An er

What came is what was always coming. From about 2003 (post-dot-com bubble) until about 2013, it was an era of ‘do no evil’. Make the world a better place. An era of ‘we’re better than the previous generation’ and the democratizing effects of the internet and social media. It was given to us for ‘free’ with the mantra of ‘don’t worry about it, we’ll monetize later. Trust us.’ We bought into it and created massive platform monopolies. What came was next was a bait and switch that resulted in cesspools of advertising, tracking, and a mess of curated content that promotes outrage and polarization because it keeps people on the page and clicking links. Content and journalism has been diluted and pushed to the gutter — quantity over quality. The noise is deafening.

zamadatix 7y ago
"It was given to us for ‘free’ with the mantra of ‘don’t worry about it, we’ll monetize later. Trust us.’ " "What came was next was a bait and switch that resulted in cesspools of advertising, tracking, and a mess of curated content that promotes outrage and polarization because it keeps people on the page and clicking links." So was it really a bait and switch or part of the mantra it was given on we just didn't look that far ahead?
- everdrive 7y ago
  It's hard to remember this in hindsight. Most people didn't understand how the internet worked, and wouldn't have anticipated this.
- decasteve 7y ago
  The value proposition for publishers and for users was, and still is, a moving target. The beginning of ads in search results, in timelines, were promised to be ‘small, unobtrusive, text-based ads’ that didn’t take away from the organic results and content. But this began a race to the bottom. It was a slow burn — boiling the frog. What we have now is drastically different then the promises that we’re made a decade ago. That’s why I call it a bait and switch.
aguyfromnb 7y ago
>What came was next was a bait and switch that resulted in cesspools of advertising, tracking, and a mess of curated content that promotes outrage and polarization because it keeps people on the page and clicking links. Content and journalism has been diluted and pushed to the gutter Advertising and the surveillance infrastructure are just one part of it: - Theranos (zero due diligence, blatant fraud that flew in the face of science) - WeWork (foisting terrible finances onto the public) - Cult of Elon Musk (we like the companies, so we will excuse doxing journalists and critics, securities fraud, SWATing whistleblowers, building factories in China amidst a trade war) - Google's Project Maven - Uber/Waymo/Tesla using our roads as a test bed for automonomous driving and killing people. - Most facets of the "gig economy" - YouTube content catering to pedophiles And on and on...

zamadatix 7y ago

"It was given to us for ‘free’ with the mantra of ‘don’t worry about it, we’ll monetize later. Trust us.’ " "What came was next was a bait and switch that resulted in cesspools of advertising, tracking, and a mess of curated content that promotes outrage and polarization because it keeps people on the page and clicking links." So was it really a bait and switch or part of the mantra it was given on we just didn't look that far ahead?

everdrive 7y ago
It's hard to remember this in hindsight. Most people didn't understand how the internet worked, and wouldn't have anticipated this.
decasteve 7y ago
The value proposition for publishers and for users was, and still is, a moving target. The beginning of ads in search results, in timelines, were promised to be ‘small, unobtrusive, text-based ads’ that didn’t take away from the organic results and content. But this began a race to the bottom. It was a slow burn — boiling the frog. What we have now is drastically different then the promises that we’re made a decade ago. That’s why I call it a bait and switch.

aguyfromnb 7y ago

>What came was next was a bait and switch that resulted in cesspools of advertising, tracking, and a mess of curated content that promotes outrage and polarization because it keeps people on the page and clicking links. Content and journalism has been diluted and pushed to the gutter Advertising and the surveillance infrastructure are just one part of it: - Theranos (zero due diligence, blatant fraud that flew in the face of science) - WeWork (foisting terrible finances onto the public) - Cult of Elon Musk (we like the companies, so we will excuse doxing journalists and critics, securities fraud, SWATing whistleblowers, building factories in China amidst a trade war) - Google's Project Maven - Uber/Waymo/Tesla using our roads as a test bed for automonomous driving and killing people. - Most facets of the "gig economy" - YouTube content catering to pedophiles And on and on...