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> The content is simply extracted and stolen. How can we have a thriving internet when such monopolistic and profit driven practices stifle innovation and creat
by geofft 7y ago
> The content is simply extracted and stolen. How can we have a thriving internet when such monopolistic and profit driven practices stifle innovation and creation on the web?
TripAdvisor, Quora, and Yelp are just as rent-seeking and profit-driven as Google.
If I write a review on TripAdvisor or Yelp or answer a question on Quora, I, the author, certainly don't get compensated for it. If Quora fails and another company takes their place, it's no loss to me - I'm no less (and no more) willing to write for the new company for free. If I write the review on Google itself, I lose nothing. Perhaps something is structurally lost for the internet by allowing Google to be a monopoly, but there aren't any incentives for me to care.
If you want a thriving internet, fix that. Ideally, make it the case that when I write a good answer to a technical question on my blog, it's as likely to be seen as when I write a good answer to a technical question on StackOverflow - the idea of companies relying on SEO content is a structural failing in the first place. Then figure out how to motivate me to keep posting to my blog (which might be letting me, the actual author, monetize my blog somehow, but might just be me writing for the pleasure of writing and knowing other people are seeing it - or perhaps the quantified pleasure of seeing trustworthy upvotes in some way).
- bertil 7y agoQuora is compensating writers (at least those they deem the best) as Partners.
- manigandham 7y agoHow do you know this? The only published program is paying for questions, and they had a trial of "knowledge prizes" years ago as a contest for the best answers but it was shut down. As a "top writer" for 2 years, I've heard nothing about any payments for writers.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoThe paradox is, if these companies fold, Google has to get the data from somewhere.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Mathnerd314 7y ago> If I write the review on Google itself, I lose nothing. There are distinct advantages to having a single cloud, with a single set of protocols/APIs/etc. The only issue I see is if Google starts filtering/blocking in a significant way, then the blocked communities will build their own infrastructure. But Google wouldn't want that data, since they are filtering it out in the first place, except perhaps to train their filters more accurately.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoMake that corpus licensed with a Creative Commons license where commercial use requires compensation, but non commercial use is freely permitted.
- bawolff 7y agoNot sure how that would help. I imagine currently its all rights reserved, and google is claiming that using their information is fair use.
- Mirioron 7y agoHow come they're not being sued over this?
- randoramax 7y agoProbably because nobody understands the ramifications of what Google is doing deeply enough to build a solid-enough case. Justice is slow, too slow for modern times and laws are inadequate.
- tomp 7y agoIf you sue them they’ll just remove you from the index. It’s a “heads I win, tails you lose” situation for Google.
- codingslave 7y agoSure but atleast Quora did the hard work of building the website, getting the users, etc. They own that. I think we need to increase awareness and outcry about google stealing content from websites. They should be required to pay part of the revenue from page views to the content owners.
- claydavisss 7y agoA company cannot survive on sympathy
- mam2 7y agoAnd google did the effort to build the NLP... There is no moral high ground in this story.
- jzb 7y agoI'm not sure Quora's problems are entirely on Google. The site has a shit reputation due to the whole "create an account if you want to look at anything." In fact, didn't Quora try really hard to game google results to funnel people to its site? I've no love for Google's steady erosion of the Web, but Quora strikes me as a company that is just sad it hasn't managed to get big enough to do what Google is doing.
- gauravjain13 7y agoHN feels like such a sanctuary: a high quality space not (yet?) perverted by the pressures of a purely profit motive. It’d be interesting to study how does HN thrives; more deeply understand the incentives that sustain the HN ecosystem.
- mmmuhd 7y agoThinking out loud,'I would gladly pay to be on hackernews ecosystem'.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoAnd so would many organisations who would like to use it to influence hacker opinion.
- geofft 7y agoIt's quite profit-perverted: the overarching goal is to conflate in the mind of engineers the idea of "hackers" - a group that traditionally is interested in the inherent joy of hacking and is skeptical of business-types - with the goals of venture capitalists and the lives of founders. It's not very explicit, and obviously I nonetheless find value here, but if you've ever seen someone build a technically interesting project and thought "Hey, they should get some seed funding and work on this full-time," then the HN gambit has been successful.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago> If you want a thriving internet, fix that. If you want a thriving internet, get out of the way. Too many big companies and governments are trying to force us to see only certain things. Stop that! Back to the early 90's.
- gist 7y ago> If I write a review on TripAdvisor or Yelp or answer a question on Quora, I, the author, certainly don't get compensated for it. But you do get 'compensated' you get a good feeling from it. Along those lines there are many things that people do in which they get 'compensated' not by money or that money isn't the primary motivator. Jeff Bezos does not get up and go to work every day because he wants to amass more money 'be compensated for what he does'. Yes it's a by product but I would argue it's not what drives him. He does it for other reasons and has other motivations. Another example - A woman who volunteers at a hospital and doesn't get paid a salary does it to keep busy and to feel good not for 'compensation'. Not saying money isn't important. But nobody comments on HN and gets paid although some people have made money as a result of commenting but my guess is that is not what led them down that road or kept them at it. [1] [1] I say this from personal experience having made (to this day) a boatload of money making comments in another place (really you have no idea). But 100% never did it for that reason at all.
- geofft 7y agoI don't disagree with you - but then there's no harm in the Quoras or TripAdvisors of the world failing to make a profit, is there? Those of us who review for the joy of reviewing and of being useful will keep doing it even if other people can't figure out how to rent-seek, and there is no risk to a vibrant internet.