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Google can't index an internet that doesn't exist. The open web is truly dying. I believe in the open web, but it seems like an ideological position, not somet

by pradn 3y ago

Google can't index an internet that doesn't exist. The open web is truly dying. I believe in the open web, but it seems like an ideological position, not something most people want to participate in. (Just like decentralization!) There's a few reasons: 1. Putting things on the web means your words are public, so they can be archived forever, and anyone can look at them. Do I want employers looking at my high school blog? (Hell, mine is still up, go look it up and you'll find things I no longer believe are appropriate!) Recall that keeping posts private was an important innovation w/ Facebook, over MySpace, which was largely all-public. 2. Most people don't want to bother with hosting their own website. It costs money and requires expertise to run. And it can easily go awry (DDOS attacks! getting hacked! losing your domain!). 3. If you don't want to bother with hosting your own site, you are at the mercy of platforms that always (always!) devolve into bloat, over-commercialization, and perhaps censorship. Medium, Reddit, Wordpress.com, Tumblr - you name it! 4. Most people don't want to put the effort into writing/posting anything beyond basic food/vacation photos or whatnot. Even the people hyper-engaged in politics online are a minority. How often did people write a diary, even, before the internet. Putting in this sort of effort is not something most people want to do. I don't blame them - life's busy and work/school takes the lion's share of everyone's energy. Look at me - all I do is post comments on HN! I haven't updated my two-page static website in years! 5. It's lonely running a website! There's no guaranteed engagement, as there is with posting an Insta story or a Facebook profile picture. It really is like shouting into the void. Yes, one can join a web-ring, but you could also make your own butter...

pessimizer 3y ago
> Google can't index an internet that doesn't exist. Then it should index the internet that does, and stop trying to convince me that there are only 10 pages of results for any possible query. > The open web is truly dying. Of starvation, because the search indexes don't index it, preferring to index the part of the web that is aggressively marketing itself (and buying and showing ads.)
- pradn 3y ago
  We have a sort of meta-stable failure here. Even if it's possible to win the battle against SEO and junk sites (and I don't think it is), this is the best that commercial search engines will do, given their resources and incentives. No one else has been able to break in, for lack of quality, for lack of resources (it's expensive to index the web!), and b/c search engine brands are so sticky (that's why Google pays Apple ~$10 billion to be the default on Apple devices.) If the junk web problem was so easy to solve, wouldn't another search engine be able to do so - like Bing with Microsoft's resources, or DDG with their unique outlook/guarantees? So given the current economic system, the current governance regime, and the current culture, this is the best our civilization can do. Unless there's some sharp rift, the internet will stay the course. I feel like this line of criticism feels a bit like screaming at the clouds.
vagab0nd 3y ago
Regarding 1: I firmly believe that in the future, what you say doesn't matter. What matters is what you can prove you've said. What's the difference between the following two? (a) You say something and someone takes a screenshot of it, and (b) Someone just conjures up a fake screenshot of you saying something. These are indistinguishable. With LLM and SD, these fakes will become easier and easier. The solution is some crypto that allows you to do two things: (a) Be able to prove that you said something, and (b) later revoke it, such that your prove doesn't work anymore and there's no trace it was ever used.
nemothekid 3y ago
I think this largely hits nail on the head. Imagine I was particularly knowledgable about ballpoint pens, and I spent most of my time manufacturing ball point pens. What motivation do I have to spend money to, build, design and host a website, deal with content moderation, work on distribution and SEO optimization and potentially buy ads. If I do this, I might as well expect a return and start selling something, which leads to spam. But if I just want to talk about the finer details of blue ink vs blank ink, and theres a community of ballpoint pen enthusiasts already, it's far easier for me to reply to a couple hundred comments over the course of the year. I don't know where the "open" web goes from here. With moderation getting more and more time consuming I don't blame people for just running to discord where they can properly gatekeep information.
- mostlysimilar 3y ago
  > What motivation do I have to spend money to, build, design and host a website, deal with content moderation, work on distribution and SEO optimization and potentially buy ads Betterment of the shared social world of the web? Not everything has to make a profit.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >Betterment of the shared social world of the web? are you willing to pay your own money and time for that ideal? I simply lack all the energies and budgets for that level of altruism. Maybe in 40 years when I retire, if I still have that passion left.
sosuke 3y ago
#2 I still have trouble just renewing my SSL cert every 3 months. I don't want to update my system but they keep moving the goal post.
guy98238710 3y ago
> 1. Putting things on the web means your words are public, so they can be archived forever, and anyone can look at them. > 4. Most people don't want to put the effort into writing/posting anything beyond basic food/vacation photos or whatnot. Nobody cares about opinions of some dipshit. There are literally millions of experts in the world. We want to hear from them. > 3. If you don't want to bother with hosting your own site, you are at the mercy of platforms... Wikipedia & sister sites. StackOverflow. I am pretty sure there is space for more open-content sites, especially ones run by non-profits. > 5. It's lonely running a website! Comment sections help a lot. Blogs can also have multiple authors.
- xdennis 3y ago
  > Nobody cares about opinions of some dipshit. One individual, sure, but the opinions of millions of non-experts are valuable. They form the majority of buyers so their aggregate opinions matter to marketers. And they often trust the opinions of non-experts more.
- plewd 3y ago
  > Wikipedia & sister sites. StackOverflow. I am pretty sure there is space for more open-content sites, especially ones run by non-profits. How does this contradict the point that you're at the mercy of platforms?StackOverflow could very well go down the same route as Reddit, for example.

by pradn 3y ago

pessimizer 3y ago

> Google can't index an internet that doesn't exist. Then it should index the internet that does, and stop trying to convince me that there are only 10 pages of results for any possible query. > The open web is truly dying. Of starvation, because the search indexes don't index it, preferring to index the part of the web that is aggressively marketing itself (and buying and showing ads.)

pradn 3y ago
We have a sort of meta-stable failure here. Even if it's possible to win the battle against SEO and junk sites (and I don't think it is), this is the best that commercial search engines will do, given their resources and incentives. No one else has been able to break in, for lack of quality, for lack of resources (it's expensive to index the web!), and b/c search engine brands are so sticky (that's why Google pays Apple ~$10 billion to be the default on Apple devices.) If the junk web problem was so easy to solve, wouldn't another search engine be able to do so - like Bing with Microsoft's resources, or DDG with their unique outlook/guarantees? So given the current economic system, the current governance regime, and the current culture, this is the best our civilization can do. Unless there's some sharp rift, the internet will stay the course. I feel like this line of criticism feels a bit like screaming at the clouds.

vagab0nd 3y ago

Regarding 1: I firmly believe that in the future, what you say doesn't matter. What matters is what you can prove you've said. What's the difference between the following two? (a) You say something and someone takes a screenshot of it, and (b) Someone just conjures up a fake screenshot of you saying something. These are indistinguishable. With LLM and SD, these fakes will become easier and easier. The solution is some crypto that allows you to do two things: (a) Be able to prove that you said something, and (b) later revoke it, such that your prove doesn't work anymore and there's no trace it was ever used.

nemothekid 3y ago

I think this largely hits nail on the head. Imagine I was particularly knowledgable about ballpoint pens, and I spent most of my time manufacturing ball point pens. What motivation do I have to spend money to, build, design and host a website, deal with content moderation, work on distribution and SEO optimization and potentially buy ads. If I do this, I might as well expect a return and start selling something, which leads to spam. But if I just want to talk about the finer details of blue ink vs blank ink, and theres a community of ballpoint pen enthusiasts already, it's far easier for me to reply to a couple hundred comments over the course of the year. I don't know where the "open" web goes from here. With moderation getting more and more time consuming I don't blame people for just running to discord where they can properly gatekeep information.

mostlysimilar 3y ago
> What motivation do I have to spend money to, build, design and host a website, deal with content moderation, work on distribution and SEO optimization and potentially buy ads Betterment of the shared social world of the web? Not everything has to make a profit.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >Betterment of the shared social world of the web? are you willing to pay your own money and time for that ideal? I simply lack all the energies and budgets for that level of altruism. Maybe in 40 years when I retire, if I still have that passion left.

sosuke 3y ago

#2 I still have trouble just renewing my SSL cert every 3 months. I don't want to update my system but they keep moving the goal post.

guy98238710 3y ago

> 1. Putting things on the web means your words are public, so they can be archived forever, and anyone can look at them. > 4. Most people don't want to put the effort into writing/posting anything beyond basic food/vacation photos or whatnot. Nobody cares about opinions of some dipshit. There are literally millions of experts in the world. We want to hear from them. > 3. If you don't want to bother with hosting your own site, you are at the mercy of platforms... Wikipedia & sister sites. StackOverflow. I am pretty sure there is space for more open-content sites, especially ones run by non-profits. > 5. It's lonely running a website! Comment sections help a lot. Blogs can also have multiple authors.

xdennis 3y ago
> Nobody cares about opinions of some dipshit. One individual, sure, but the opinions of millions of non-experts are valuable. They form the majority of buyers so their aggregate opinions matter to marketers. And they often trust the opinions of non-experts more.
plewd 3y ago
> Wikipedia & sister sites. StackOverflow. I am pretty sure there is space for more open-content sites, especially ones run by non-profits. How does this contradict the point that you're at the mercy of platforms?StackOverflow could very well go down the same route as Reddit, for example.