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As commercial enterprises currently are set up, they have no incentive whatsoever to preserve the ecosystem they are thriving on. Worse, they profit more when h

As commercial enterprises currently are set up, they have no incentive whatsoever to preserve the ecosystem they are thriving on. Worse, they profit more when harming it. As seen here with Google, that is true irrespective of the nature of the affected system. It's not just the quality of websites that is negatively hit either. The real victims are us, civil society and our future. The information realm that is the internet should provide not only some basic tidbits, it should inform to the full extent of human knowledge. Even more than that, it should provide us with the freedom to discuss among ourselves and reflect on ourselves, humans and humanity, about the future of society. Without such self-reflection, there is only stagnation and retardation. We cannot change what we do not understand and we understand ourselves the least.

candiodari 3y ago
I don't get why this is supposed to be Google's fault. I mean it doesn't matter of course: this is happening, and the only real question is if it will continue, maybe if something can be done. Who's fault it is ... Google is doing a lot to preserve the web. It's not enough, perhaps. Probably. But it's quite unclear to me what they could do to reverse this. Plus we've all seen what this has lead to in meat-space. Information is one sided. BBC is supposed to be the paragon of neutrality, for example, and while it is pretty neutral on the situation in many places, it's not exactly neutral on UK and Australia political issues for example. And it suffers from the same problem as pretty much every other meat-space information source outside of libraries: the only information you can get from it is really quite superfluous. Their recent "is AI evil?" series, for example, is neither neutral nor does it give enough information for people, even if someone wanted to go really in-depth on the issue, and have a really well-considered opinion, the only place where you could collect enough information to do that would be Youtube imho. With some blogs and maybe a scientific paper or two. Oh wait 3 out of those three work with a lot of help from Google (just try finding scientific papers without Google scholar) I agree the situation is bad. But frankly, while Google perhaps has some blame in this, I'm very sure the situation would be 10x worse without Google.
- Loquebantur 3y ago
  It is mainly Google's fault since Google is the main actor in this space. You put up a false dichotomy, as if Google disappearing would mean a void to wander the world eternal. The internet is very much like public infrastructure. It is crucial to explicitly determine what functions there are indispensable for society to thrive. Ironically, finding available information is just such an indispensable utility. Imagine roads only being present or usable when conducive to advertisement.
  - visarga 3y ago
    > Imagine roads only being present or usable when conducive to advertisement. There's also a big interest in tracking people for reason du jour.
correlaroate 3y ago
> Even more than that, it should provide us with the freedom to discuss among ourselves and reflect on ourselves, humans and humanity, about the future of society. I usually hear this "freedom of speech" stance until somebody hears something they don't like, then it's out the door and censorship gets a foot in the door. As long as there is no consensus in society what speech is ok and what's not, we won't get anywhere. Currently, we are mainly leaving this to platforms to decide, and they cater to their customers (which are ad clients), not to what is best for society. Obviously there needs to be some moderation and banned contents. But a line needs to be drawn and anything beyond that needs to be free. No matter if some individual gets hurt by it or not.

candiodari 3y ago

I don't get why this is supposed to be Google's fault. I mean it doesn't matter of course: this is happening, and the only real question is if it will continue, maybe if something can be done. Who's fault it is ... Google is doing a lot to preserve the web. It's not enough, perhaps. Probably. But it's quite unclear to me what they could do to reverse this. Plus we've all seen what this has lead to in meat-space. Information is one sided. BBC is supposed to be the paragon of neutrality, for example, and while it is pretty neutral on the situation in many places, it's not exactly neutral on UK and Australia political issues for example. And it suffers from the same problem as pretty much every other meat-space information source outside of libraries: the only information you can get from it is really quite superfluous. Their recent "is AI evil?" series, for example, is neither neutral nor does it give enough information for people, even if someone wanted to go really in-depth on the issue, and have a really well-considered opinion, the only place where you could collect enough information to do that would be Youtube imho. With some blogs and maybe a scientific paper or two. Oh wait 3 out of those three work with a lot of help from Google (just try finding scientific papers without Google scholar) I agree the situation is bad. But frankly, while Google perhaps has some blame in this, I'm very sure the situation would be 10x worse without Google.

Loquebantur 3y ago
It is mainly Google's fault since Google is the main actor in this space. You put up a false dichotomy, as if Google disappearing would mean a void to wander the world eternal. The internet is very much like public infrastructure. It is crucial to explicitly determine what functions there are indispensable for society to thrive. Ironically, finding available information is just such an indispensable utility. Imagine roads only being present or usable when conducive to advertisement.
- visarga 3y ago
  > Imagine roads only being present or usable when conducive to advertisement. There's also a big interest in tracking people for reason du jour.

correlaroate 3y ago

> Even more than that, it should provide us with the freedom to discuss among ourselves and reflect on ourselves, humans and humanity, about the future of society. I usually hear this "freedom of speech" stance until somebody hears something they don't like, then it's out the door and censorship gets a foot in the door. As long as there is no consensus in society what speech is ok and what's not, we won't get anywhere. Currently, we are mainly leaving this to platforms to decide, and they cater to their customers (which are ad clients), not to what is best for society. Obviously there needs to be some moderation and banned contents. But a line needs to be drawn and anything beyond that needs to be free. No matter if some individual gets hurt by it or not.