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It's easier to put things online wrt technical barrier of entry and cost, but it's a lot harder for things to get seen. Got a popular page on Facebook? pay for

It's easier to put things online wrt technical barrier of entry and cost, but it's a lot harder for things to get seen. Got a popular page on Facebook? pay for it to be seen. Got a great unique website? Pay to be seen via Adwords. Website owners don't link so liberally as they once did because the link graph has been obliterated by "what people think will please Google" rather than linking to things they think other people might like to see. When I used FB I lost count of the number of times I had to re-jig my setting for displaying content from "most popular" (according to them) versus most recent. I still find that when I'm browsing Facebook. I see an article with XXXX number of comments and try to see what's newly been said, it's almost impossible- it's like I'm fighting against what new information is available vs their preferred method of displaying things due to the technical limitations of how they store information.

varispeed 6y ago
> Got a popular page on Facebook? pay for it to be seen. And if you stop paying Facebook will severely limit any organic traffic to your page. That should be illegal, unfortunately it is not being viewed as something serious, meanwhile Facebook gets showered with billions extracted out of small businesses.
criddell 6y ago
> it's a lot harder for things to get seen Do you think it was easier in the age before the internet to be gain an audience?
- uncomputation 6y ago
  Not GP, but I believe they meant it is a lot harder for things to get seen on the Internet now than it was on the Internet before, not IRL before.
  - criddell 6y ago
    That might be it. The GGP was talking about the history of civilization, so it could be either way.
- ricardo81 6y ago
  I was born in '81 so I'm probably not qualified to say. I made a site in the late 90's, biology-online.org which I harried universities and whatnot to link to which they happily obliged, ad-free educational content laid out well. Nowadays that kind of solicitation is ignored. All I'm saying is it was easier then than what it is now, and large platforms deciding what gets seen and what isn't certainly doesn't grease the wheels of discovery.
0x426577617265 6y ago
> ... vs preferred method of displaying things due to the technical limitations of how they store information. I don’t believe that is what the platform is doing. It is displaying content the user will most likely interact with, resulting in the user staying on the platform longer. It seems quite dangerous to me, as it could cause users to assign some sort of weight to the content, particularly if the content is well liked by others it could lead to the belief that ‘this is the correct information’.
Hokusai 6y ago
> due to the technical limitations of how they store information. Has nothing to do with technical limitations and everything with engagement metrics. Facebook does not want to show you what you want to see, they want to show you what will hook you and keep you in the platform. If anything, it takes more resources to show their view than just a time posted order.
- ricardo81 6y ago
  Not sure I agree, because you can fiddle between "most popular" vs "most recent" and sometimes the "most recent" cannot be seen at all! It's as if they're unavailable, or, too many hops away to be available. And if it's a case of guessing what's going to be engaged more with, I want to see everything and make my own choice. wrt to resources, perhaps they index one or the other and they make their choice rather than mine.
- inshadows 6y ago
  > Facebook does not want to show you what you want to see, they want to show you what will hook you and keep you in the platform. Sounds like drug dealers. I'm not hooked to their platform because they don't show me what I want to see. But what you said imply that there is some addictive content that people would normally avoid, but Facebook helps them get addicted. Truly evil. I'm not active Facebook user so I don't know how it goes there.
cortesoft 6y ago
How would you have been able to get people to see your great unique website 20 years ago? I don't remember it being easy to get a large audience at any point in the internet's history.
- lmm 6y ago
  You could join a webring, or link to related people and ask them to link back. Given that there was no financial incentive to get traffic (if anything the opposite), there weren't so many pages with duplicate content (or no actual content at all) competing for attention.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    There were are also far fewer person-minutes in front of an Internet-connected screen.
- spurgu 6y ago
  Word of mouth. Post in some relevant chats/forums. Get a handful of other people interested, have them spread the word (links/chat) for you.
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    Posting in a subreddit will likely get you more traffic than you would have gotten back then.
    - spurgu 6y ago
      For a couple of hours, then it's forgotten.
- ricardo81 6y ago
  You build a site with unique content, decent layout, design. Email other website owners "Hi, I think this would be would be a decent resource for your 'other resources' page / your visitors might like this". (as opposed to ... what other means do you discover new content?) Only, no one does link pages anymore, because they're fearful of platform algos deciding that their inbound/outbound link profile is toxic. What I'm after is a more decentralised Internet, less black box algo, where people link to whatever they want without cutting off their oxygen, or having to pay for exposure. Might be idealistic, but FB/Google have certainly been diagnosed as part of the problem. In my case, getting a good link from harvard.edu really helped wrt search. And obviously a great link from Harvard drived traffic by itself. Just a hint for the downvoters, that's how it was done 20 years ago. Nowadays due to systemic link building spam, perhaps not. I'm addressing the above reply is all.
xwdv 6y ago
There is one place where you can guarantee your information and exchange of ideas is easily seen, paying little to no money. Comments. Comments are the final frontier. Why do you think I never bother getting a personal blog website off the ground? Because the traffic it gets pales in comparison to the audience I get from writing comments. This comment for instance might be seen by several hundred people, all within my target demographic. How many people might see my longform blog content? Maybe dozens if I'm lucky. I've never really written a meaningful blog post, but I've probably written a novel's worth of comments. And because comments aren't really written for monetary gains, they are one of purest forms of writing left on the internet today. People still write comments liberally and openly, speaking their mind and even voicing unpopular opinions, because they don't give a shit about what Google thinks. Google doesn't read comments. Say the quiet parts loudly. Maybe someday there will be an age where you can be certain almost every comment you read is already bought and paid for by some corporate interest or a guerrilla advertiser, but fortunately we are still not there yet.
- tartoran 6y ago
  If we do nothing about it there will be a time like that with comments interspersed with ads or not being able to read a full comment without clicking some ad to unhide the rest of the comment. Im still behind adblockers but am not sure how future proof they are
- ricardo81 6y ago
  I get what you're saying, because you might have a lot to say about topics in comment sections where it matters and in topics you know a lot about. But there's some comment sections where you say something and it gets filtered out. What say you after this? I'm sure you're aware of shadow banning/filtering, which YouTube at least does, perhaps other large platforms. Maybe a case in point. There was a referendum in Scotland about independence from the UK. There was a very prominent blog ranked in Google regarding the question of aye/nay, but you found that the comments were moderated towards one disposition. If all the funnels point to that information source, the comments are almost useless, especially so if they're curated towards one conclusion. We're relying on a middle man (or many middle men) offering a variety of conclusions which we should reach ourselves, rather than one hand delivered to us by one or two algorithms and/or social engineering. Diversity, basically, not just in results, but opinions and conclusions.
ryandrake 6y ago
> it's a lot harder for things to get seen. Here's something I've always wondered: I don't really get this obsession with maximizing the number of people who go to one's web page. If you're just a regular person who's not profiting from ads or something, it shouldn't matter. If I post something to the internet, I maybe send it to a few people who might want to see it and that's it. I don't care about collecting pageviews, or likes, or follows, or upvotes, or any of these vanity metrics. It doesn't really matter to me if something I wrote was viewed by 10 people, 1000 people, or 100,000 people. Who cares? What difference does it make? My life is not richer because thousands of random people read some blog post or forum comment. The only reason I can see to promote some creative work is if you're making a profit off of it. In that case, it's an investment. Spend $X on discovery and make $Y in revenue from ads or conversions or whatever. But just to put up some web site about your stamp collection? Who cares how many people visit?
- talaketu 6y ago
  Indeed. Why publish your journal at all?
- ricardo81 6y ago
  I think you're seeing it out of context. I'd agree, it's not about volume. I'd disagree about your supposition of an 'maximizing the number of people who go to one's web page', which the rest of your post alludes to. Most smart online marketers are concerned with conversions rates, not volume of visitors. ROI as you mention with $X and $Y The point is about how people discover new information. As an end user, on which platform, how that platform allows me to discover the new information, are there platform or result alternatives etc etc. IF we're reducing my online information discovery to "how advertisers can effectively make an ROI out of me", especially from one or two portals, I suspect the outcome is I'm being duped or at the very least, shortchanged of all the other sources that should be available to me.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  Almost anyone who publishes something wants people to read it. The ones who don’t care how many people read their ideas don’t publish — they keep it to themselves or just discuss it with friends.
Razengan 6y ago
> It's easier to put things online wrt technical barrier of entry and cost, but it's a lot harder for things to get seen. On the other hand it can be too easy for too many people to be seen: spam. Which makes you wish for more curated and controlled platforms. And that’s why we have moderators and upvotes and downvotes.

varispeed 6y ago

> Got a popular page on Facebook? pay for it to be seen. And if you stop paying Facebook will severely limit any organic traffic to your page. That should be illegal, unfortunately it is not being viewed as something serious, meanwhile Facebook gets showered with billions extracted out of small businesses.

criddell 6y ago

> it's a lot harder for things to get seen Do you think it was easier in the age before the internet to be gain an audience?

uncomputation 6y ago
Not GP, but I believe they meant it is a lot harder for things to get seen on the Internet now than it was on the Internet before, not IRL before.
- criddell 6y ago
  That might be it. The GGP was talking about the history of civilization, so it could be either way.
ricardo81 6y ago
I was born in '81 so I'm probably not qualified to say. I made a site in the late 90's, biology-online.org which I harried universities and whatnot to link to which they happily obliged, ad-free educational content laid out well. Nowadays that kind of solicitation is ignored. All I'm saying is it was easier then than what it is now, and large platforms deciding what gets seen and what isn't certainly doesn't grease the wheels of discovery.

0x426577617265 6y ago

> ... vs preferred method of displaying things due to the technical limitations of how they store information. I don’t believe that is what the platform is doing. It is displaying content the user will most likely interact with, resulting in the user staying on the platform longer. It seems quite dangerous to me, as it could cause users to assign some sort of weight to the content, particularly if the content is well liked by others it could lead to the belief that ‘this is the correct information’.

Hokusai 6y ago

> due to the technical limitations of how they store information. Has nothing to do with technical limitations and everything with engagement metrics. Facebook does not want to show you what you want to see, they want to show you what will hook you and keep you in the platform. If anything, it takes more resources to show their view than just a time posted order.

ricardo81 6y ago
Not sure I agree, because you can fiddle between "most popular" vs "most recent" and sometimes the "most recent" cannot be seen at all! It's as if they're unavailable, or, too many hops away to be available. And if it's a case of guessing what's going to be engaged more with, I want to see everything and make my own choice. wrt to resources, perhaps they index one or the other and they make their choice rather than mine.
inshadows 6y ago
> Facebook does not want to show you what you want to see, they want to show you what will hook you and keep you in the platform. Sounds like drug dealers. I'm not hooked to their platform because they don't show me what I want to see. But what you said imply that there is some addictive content that people would normally avoid, but Facebook helps them get addicted. Truly evil. I'm not active Facebook user so I don't know how it goes there.

cortesoft 6y ago

How would you have been able to get people to see your great unique website 20 years ago? I don't remember it being easy to get a large audience at any point in the internet's history.

lmm 6y ago
You could join a webring, or link to related people and ask them to link back. Given that there was no financial incentive to get traffic (if anything the opposite), there weren't so many pages with duplicate content (or no actual content at all) competing for attention.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  There were are also far fewer person-minutes in front of an Internet-connected screen.
spurgu 6y ago
Word of mouth. Post in some relevant chats/forums. Get a handful of other people interested, have them spread the word (links/chat) for you.
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Posting in a subreddit will likely get you more traffic than you would have gotten back then.
  - spurgu 6y ago
    For a couple of hours, then it's forgotten.
ricardo81 6y ago
You build a site with unique content, decent layout, design. Email other website owners "Hi, I think this would be would be a decent resource for your 'other resources' page / your visitors might like this". (as opposed to ... what other means do you discover new content?) Only, no one does link pages anymore, because they're fearful of platform algos deciding that their inbound/outbound link profile is toxic. What I'm after is a more decentralised Internet, less black box algo, where people link to whatever they want without cutting off their oxygen, or having to pay for exposure. Might be idealistic, but FB/Google have certainly been diagnosed as part of the problem. In my case, getting a good link from harvard.edu really helped wrt search. And obviously a great link from Harvard drived traffic by itself. Just a hint for the downvoters, that's how it was done 20 years ago. Nowadays due to systemic link building spam, perhaps not. I'm addressing the above reply is all.

xwdv 6y ago

There is one place where you can guarantee your information and exchange of ideas is easily seen, paying little to no money. Comments. Comments are the final frontier. Why do you think I never bother getting a personal blog website off the ground? Because the traffic it gets pales in comparison to the audience I get from writing comments. This comment for instance might be seen by several hundred people, all within my target demographic. How many people might see my longform blog content? Maybe dozens if I'm lucky. I've never really written a meaningful blog post, but I've probably written a novel's worth of comments. And because comments aren't really written for monetary gains, they are one of purest forms of writing left on the internet today. People still write comments liberally and openly, speaking their mind and even voicing unpopular opinions, because they don't give a shit about what Google thinks. Google doesn't read comments. Say the quiet parts loudly. Maybe someday there will be an age where you can be certain almost every comment you read is already bought and paid for by some corporate interest or a guerrilla advertiser, but fortunately we are still not there yet.

tartoran 6y ago
If we do nothing about it there will be a time like that with comments interspersed with ads or not being able to read a full comment without clicking some ad to unhide the rest of the comment. Im still behind adblockers but am not sure how future proof they are
ricardo81 6y ago
I get what you're saying, because you might have a lot to say about topics in comment sections where it matters and in topics you know a lot about. But there's some comment sections where you say something and it gets filtered out. What say you after this? I'm sure you're aware of shadow banning/filtering, which YouTube at least does, perhaps other large platforms. Maybe a case in point. There was a referendum in Scotland about independence from the UK. There was a very prominent blog ranked in Google regarding the question of aye/nay, but you found that the comments were moderated towards one disposition. If all the funnels point to that information source, the comments are almost useless, especially so if they're curated towards one conclusion. We're relying on a middle man (or many middle men) offering a variety of conclusions which we should reach ourselves, rather than one hand delivered to us by one or two algorithms and/or social engineering. Diversity, basically, not just in results, but opinions and conclusions.

ryandrake 6y ago

> it's a lot harder for things to get seen. Here's something I've always wondered: I don't really get this obsession with maximizing the number of people who go to one's web page. If you're just a regular person who's not profiting from ads or something, it shouldn't matter. If I post something to the internet, I maybe send it to a few people who might want to see it and that's it. I don't care about collecting pageviews, or likes, or follows, or upvotes, or any of these vanity metrics. It doesn't really matter to me if something I wrote was viewed by 10 people, 1000 people, or 100,000 people. Who cares? What difference does it make? My life is not richer because thousands of random people read some blog post or forum comment. The only reason I can see to promote some creative work is if you're making a profit off of it. In that case, it's an investment. Spend $X on discovery and make $Y in revenue from ads or conversions or whatever. But just to put up some web site about your stamp collection? Who cares how many people visit?

talaketu 6y ago
Indeed. Why publish your journal at all?
ricardo81 6y ago
I think you're seeing it out of context. I'd agree, it's not about volume. I'd disagree about your supposition of an 'maximizing the number of people who go to one's web page', which the rest of your post alludes to. Most smart online marketers are concerned with conversions rates, not volume of visitors. ROI as you mention with $X and $Y The point is about how people discover new information. As an end user, on which platform, how that platform allows me to discover the new information, are there platform or result alternatives etc etc. IF we're reducing my online information discovery to "how advertisers can effectively make an ROI out of me", especially from one or two portals, I suspect the outcome is I'm being duped or at the very least, shortchanged of all the other sources that should be available to me.
spoonjim 6y ago
Almost anyone who publishes something wants people to read it. The ones who don’t care how many people read their ideas don’t publish — they keep it to themselves or just discuss it with friends.

Razengan 6y ago

> It's easier to put things online wrt technical barrier of entry and cost, but it's a lot harder for things to get seen. On the other hand it can be too easy for too many people to be seen: spam. Which makes you wish for more curated and controlled platforms. And that’s why we have moderators and upvotes and downvotes.