4 ms·

The frustrating part is that excellent content, the type that is relevant, well researched, well written, that stands head and shoulders above anything else is

by fleddr 4y ago

The frustrating part is that excellent content, the type that is relevant, well researched, well written, that stands head and shoulders above anything else is out there. More than ever before. I know this because I'm subscribed to lots of newsletters in multiple fields. They contain one gem after the other. There's a wealth of top notch content that does contain said wisdom. As in, read just this article and skip the 100 other ones. Because it is so damn good. But I have to actively store them to notes or bookmarks, because you'll never find a single one in Google. Google has become completely broken for me. In general it returns low quality verbose content, which seems a variation of keyword spamming from 20 years ago. Gonna be great when those crappy pages can be generated with AI. Google promotes stale content that is outdated or simply incorrect over anything else. And not only that, this effect strengthens over time. Google increasingly dismisses your input. You type a few words and it simply drops a few. Google has no understanding of meaning. You'll type "red flower thailand" and it'll just include flowers from any other random country, including those not even red. Google indexes everything and still can't figure out an original source. It'll show you spammy Pinterest garbage over the actual high quality source. So here we are. We do have a treasure chest of wisdom. But wisdom doesn't click ads so fuck us I guess. And if this isn't depressing enough, Google will continue to get away with it. Google only has to work for the masses posing normie surface level questions. It does that. It works.

WhiteBlueSkies 4y ago
Which newsletter are you subscribed to?
- fleddr 4y ago
  Please see my answer above.
lumenwrites 4y ago
> I know this because I'm subscribed to lots of newsletters in multiple fields. They contain one gem after the other. There's a wealth of top notch content that does contain said wisdom. As in, read just this article and skip the 100 other ones. Because it is so damn good. Can you recommend your favorite ones? I'm particularly interested in startups/tech/programming/AI topics, but if you know some great examples from other fields, please share them as well!
- fleddr 4y ago
  My interests are so specific that if I list them, I'll dox myself. Which isn't a huge deal, but still want to stay anon here. Still, I can throw a bone by including one that is fairly generic: front-end development. My before situation: I used to follow dozens of experts on Twitter. Which is a continuous effort, and includes lots of noise. And that's just Twitter, I also followed some Medium authors, Youtubers, and sometimes watch videos of conferences (that I did not attend). I replaced all that with a single newsletter: https://frontendfoc.us/ https://frontendfoc.us/ It comes weekly. If anything of any importance in the field happened, it's in there. It's such a vast efficiency win. Once per week, I spent some 30-60 mins reading it, and I'm up to speed. Generally, 80-90% of the contents I can quickly scan through as they're not that new or important for me to dig in to. Yet 10% is impactful and bookmarkable, the gems I referred to earlier. I'd recommend to just try lots of newsletters from your field and let them compete. Read them for a few weeks and keep unsubscribing until you have the ultimate one. Go for weekly newsletters, not daily ones. Let the information come to you instead of chasing it, reserve fixed reading time in your schedule. Hope this helps!
  - pnt12 4y ago
    Do you have any recommendation for backend development or software engineering in general? If you're not comfortable with sharing those, feel free not to!
  - lumenwrites 4y ago
    Yeah, this is helpful, thanks for sharing!
bluetwo 4y ago
Pages filled with crappy generated AI are what I get every time I have searched for anything recently. Which leads people to post what would be their google search to Reddit, after finding any group related to the topic. Which is leading to Reddit forums being filled with the same beginner questions over and over and over and over... ... from people who don't even bother to join the group.
cauliflower2718 4y ago
Could you point us towards some of this excellent content and how you found it?
- fleddr 4y ago
  Please see my answer above.
- Swenrekcah 4y ago
  Not OP but I’ll chime in with a favourite: Matt Levine’s Money Stuff. It’s fun to read, informative and insightful.
TheHappyOddish 4y ago
I got sick of exactly the complaints you're talking about and moved to Kagi. I find searching for things more enjoyable now, similar to how I felt in the 90s with Google. However I'm not sure if that's due to a bias in results for sites I prefer. It is significantly less spammy though.

by fleddr 4y ago

WhiteBlueSkies 4y ago

Which newsletter are you subscribed to?

fleddr 4y ago
Please see my answer above.

lumenwrites 4y ago

> I know this because I'm subscribed to lots of newsletters in multiple fields. They contain one gem after the other. There's a wealth of top notch content that does contain said wisdom. As in, read just this article and skip the 100 other ones. Because it is so damn good. Can you recommend your favorite ones? I'm particularly interested in startups/tech/programming/AI topics, but if you know some great examples from other fields, please share them as well!

fleddr 4y ago
My interests are so specific that if I list them, I'll dox myself. Which isn't a huge deal, but still want to stay anon here. Still, I can throw a bone by including one that is fairly generic: front-end development. My before situation: I used to follow dozens of experts on Twitter. Which is a continuous effort, and includes lots of noise. And that's just Twitter, I also followed some Medium authors, Youtubers, and sometimes watch videos of conferences (that I did not attend). I replaced all that with a single newsletter: https://frontendfoc.us/ https://frontendfoc.us/ It comes weekly. If anything of any importance in the field happened, it's in there. It's such a vast efficiency win. Once per week, I spent some 30-60 mins reading it, and I'm up to speed. Generally, 80-90% of the contents I can quickly scan through as they're not that new or important for me to dig in to. Yet 10% is impactful and bookmarkable, the gems I referred to earlier. I'd recommend to just try lots of newsletters from your field and let them compete. Read them for a few weeks and keep unsubscribing until you have the ultimate one. Go for weekly newsletters, not daily ones. Let the information come to you instead of chasing it, reserve fixed reading time in your schedule. Hope this helps!
- pnt12 4y ago
  Do you have any recommendation for backend development or software engineering in general? If you're not comfortable with sharing those, feel free not to!
- lumenwrites 4y ago
  Yeah, this is helpful, thanks for sharing!

bluetwo 4y ago

Pages filled with crappy generated AI are what I get every time I have searched for anything recently. Which leads people to post what would be their google search to Reddit, after finding any group related to the topic. Which is leading to Reddit forums being filled with the same beginner questions over and over and over and over... ... from people who don't even bother to join the group.

cauliflower2718 4y ago

Could you point us towards some of this excellent content and how you found it?

fleddr 4y ago
Please see my answer above.
Swenrekcah 4y ago
Not OP but I’ll chime in with a favourite: Matt Levine’s Money Stuff. It’s fun to read, informative and insightful.

TheHappyOddish 4y ago

I got sick of exactly the complaints you're talking about and moved to Kagi. I find searching for things more enjoyable now, similar to how I felt in the 90s with Google. However I'm not sure if that's due to a bias in results for sites I prefer. It is significantly less spammy though.