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The true meta problem here is the age old question of how to fund services, including search, on the web. Google, Twitter, Reddit, Gfycat are all immediate vari
by fidotron 3y ago
The true meta problem here is the age old question of how to fund services, including search, on the web. Google, Twitter, Reddit, Gfycat are all immediate variants of the same problem, which does not have a technological solution. The naive idea that all these things can be free, especially when promoted by those in an ecosystem as propped up as it is by ad revenue, is ridiculous.
Someone has to pay for these things to be developed and operated and typically when they do they get to call the shots, which leads to the modern UX disaster.
At least now the VC situation means we have a lot less product-dumping-by-any-other-name intended to destroy the market for legitimate participants.
- courseofaction 3y agoI agree, and people's unwillingness to pay for the things they value causes the thing to no longer be 'for' them. It's for those who are willing to pay for it (investors).
- DeathArrow 3y agoOnce someone had something for what he perceived as free, it's hard to convince that person to pay.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoThe evolution of cable television in the U.S. might be instructive. At first, TV (broadcast) was free, with ads. IIUC, when cable TV later rolled out, it was ad-free. Viewers paid for it instead. But eventually even those paying for cable TV were shown ads. So one lesson is that paying for a service might only delay its enshitification. EDIT: It seems I was wrong about cable TV starting out ad-free [0]. So my example isn't strong evidence for my enshitification claim. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18409942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18409942
- thfuran 3y agoI think the lesson is that unsolicited advertising should be banned because it corrupts everything it can touch.
- flyinghamster 3y agoOn the other hand, when I was growing up, HBO, Cinemax, and The Movie Channel were all part of my local cable system's basic lineup. Feature-length, commercial-free movies were part of the basic cable fee. I guess that was the hook to convince people to sign up for cable, since this was not a fringe reception area. It was only later that the ad-supported channels began cropping up and ultimately taking over, cable fees be damned.
- yosito 3y agoWhich points to the tragedy of people confusing libre software with gratis software.
- Solvency 3y agoThis seems like a yesteryear problem. People today are paying for EVERYTHING in a subscription model. Streaming services. Midjourney. YouTube. Twitch. Even ChatGPT4. I would gladly pay $10/mo for an information-centric search engine that filters out all blogspam and supports power queries.
- twosdai 3y agoTotally agree. But I believe we are at the beginning of the willingness to pay for internet services cycle. Many people can't or don't want to yet, but I think in the next 5 to 10 years it will get a lot more main stream adoption.
- morgannewman 3y ago[dead]
- alphager 3y agoThat's called Kagi. It exists.