4 ms·
The realization I made recently is the financial incentive of the page view is the corrupting force that ruins search The content producer is incentivized to m
by kristopolous 4y ago
The realization I made recently is the financial incentive of the page view is the corrupting force that ruins search
The content producer is incentivized to make content as quickly as possible in as little effort as possible and cover it with as many ads as possible.
On the other end, it's within GBYs interest to be slightly confused; by not nailing it, the user engages with the search using different words, potentially hitting an adword and clicking. GBY could be convincing the user that they're just using it wrong and need to execute more searches.
So the financial cost/reward model is configured in a way that gives high margin to spammy trash covered in irritating obstructive ads and search engines that are mysteriously confused by what we ask for. And that's the modern web.
Finally we are taught to tremble in fear if we dare consider touching the sacredness of The Market. So here we are stuck with trash technology to search avalanches of garbage.*
Luckily there appears to be a few search engines that focus on sites without advertising and trackers and they seem to produce nice results
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* occasionally people like to claim this is just freedom or something so let me clear that field now: being forced to focus on maximizing profit isn't a free society. A free society would permit various missions to be pursued without fear of being squeezed out of existence by those focused exclusively on profit maximization. If priorities are imposed by a p&l tyranny, that's not freedom
- dontcontactme 4y agoWhat are these search engines that focus on sites without advertising and trackers?
- kristopolous 4y agoTry https://teclis.com https://teclis.com and https://search.marginalia.nu https://search.marginalia.nu My test queries are things like "souffle recipe" or "worst celebrity hairstyles" - if it can survive that it can survive anything
- tintedfireglass 4y agohttps://wiby.me https://wiby.me is a good one. I actually found this blog on wiby
- up6w6 4y agoThere is also Kagi[1] [1] https://kagi.com/faq#censoring https://kagi.com/faq#censoring
- psychoslave 4y ago>The content producer is incentivized to make content as quickly as possible in as little effort as possible and cover it with as many ads as possible. It all depends on the author/producer resources and goals. If resource acquisition doesn’t enter in the equation of a specific work, there is no reason to expect the advertisement industry to influence it directly in such a way, does it?
- kristopolous 4y agoI don't understand. Can you give some examples? Let me make the theoretical claim clear first: Regardless of the sentiments of a creator, so long as there's SEO pumpers creating similar content, the creator will be crowded out unless they also play that game. This theory explains why given say a new scientific finding, often a content factory's misreading of the results as opposed to the official statement from the research institute is what gets passed around. Essentially there's a requisite to engage with "the game" to capture exposure and connect with those who you wish to communicate with which is reliant on increasing metrics instead of merit. I've called it the "fast-fooding of content" in other writings on the topic. Please engage with me if you have counterexamples, I'm not married to any particular idea.
- _tom_ 4y agoIm seeing ads now for "create content faster with GPT-3. So expect quality to go down even farther, to meet the demands of capturing eyeballs as cheaply as possible. I've also started seeing review websites that are clearly ai generated these days.