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Wouldn't work, because it's chasing after the dollar that has ultimately destroyed the internet. Because the internet means income for so many people, doing wh

Wouldn't work, because it's chasing after the dollar that has ultimately destroyed the internet. Because the internet means income for so many people, doing whatever it takes to get your website to the top of search results matters a lot. That means that the hobbyist making a website cannot compete with the businesses who's lifeblood depend on edging those hobbyist pages off the search results. What made the old internet so great was your search in lycos or yahoo could pull up a result from hobbyists across the internet with a good chance of being just an honest info dump by a fan. That became an issue when the ad money started entering the mix. All the sudden we got things like ask jeeves and expert sex change edging out good content for their garbage "Hey, we also searched those keywords" landing pages. Google's initial value ad was the fact that it gave you good results that avoided these tactics. I'm afraid the old internet is simply gone forever. There will always be someone willing to break the system to get on top so they can make the money.

082349872349872 3y ago
I can do without "creators" at all, which I guess explains why my online time these days is mostly spent scurrying around the wainscoting of the web: HN, marginalia, etc. "Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks Ere I own an usurper, I'll couch with the fox" These days you can even find some seriously deep cuts, like some hobbyist from the XII explaining how to calculate with the newfangled arabic numerals: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84900936/f151.item https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84900936/f151.item
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Maybe we just need a search engine more dedicated to surfacing the hobbyists over the spammers.
- cogman10 3y ago
  And maybe we just need a new social media platform geared towards the youth ;) Unless the search engine aggressively curates it's target pages, I can't see how it wouldn't end up falling down the same trap as search engines of the past. Much like all social media sites end up overran by grandmas.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > Unless the search engine aggressively curates it's target pages, I can't see how it wouldn't end up falling down the same trap as search engines of the past. What it would have to do is have staff actively investigating current SEO tactics and thwarting them. This is like manual curation, except that when you see some results are bad, you investigate what caused the results to be like that, and change the algorithm so it stops working in general. For example, pick some of the known scummer sites and have automatic alerts if your current algorithm ever starts ranking them highly so you can have your engineers immediately investigate what's going on and fix it. It's like statistical sampling; even if you only have alerts for 2% of the scummy sites, you very quickly discover when there is an effective new tactic, and then very quickly shut it down for 100% of scummy sites. > Much like all social media sites end up overran by grandmas. I think this is specific to Facebook, possibly because of the real-name policy. Is TikTok or Twitter overrun by grandmas?
tayo42 3y ago
Idk about it being just money. I think the biggest issue is algorithm based discovery. Algorithms don't really reward being different, they often encourage more of the same. you liked this so here more of this. Now if you want your content to be seen you need to cater to how content is discovered. Money imo comes into play by people who realized that algorithms can be gamed to get bs to the top. The core problem is still algorithm based discovery. Even if you take away people who are focused on money.
SoftTalker 3y ago
> I'm afraid the old internet is simply gone forever. Are there no more hobbyist-curated lists of good content on whatever is their topic of interest? Are they just impossible to find on modern search engines, or have the communities just given up on maintaining them?

082349872349872 3y ago

I can do without "creators" at all, which I guess explains why my online time these days is mostly spent scurrying around the wainscoting of the web: HN, marginalia, etc. "Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks Ere I own an usurper, I'll couch with the fox" These days you can even find some seriously deep cuts, like some hobbyist from the XII explaining how to calculate with the newfangled arabic numerals: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84900936/f151.item https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84900936/f151.item

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

Maybe we just need a search engine more dedicated to surfacing the hobbyists over the spammers.

cogman10 3y ago
And maybe we just need a new social media platform geared towards the youth ;) Unless the search engine aggressively curates it's target pages, I can't see how it wouldn't end up falling down the same trap as search engines of the past. Much like all social media sites end up overran by grandmas.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Unless the search engine aggressively curates it's target pages, I can't see how it wouldn't end up falling down the same trap as search engines of the past. What it would have to do is have staff actively investigating current SEO tactics and thwarting them. This is like manual curation, except that when you see some results are bad, you investigate what caused the results to be like that, and change the algorithm so it stops working in general. For example, pick some of the known scummer sites and have automatic alerts if your current algorithm ever starts ranking them highly so you can have your engineers immediately investigate what's going on and fix it. It's like statistical sampling; even if you only have alerts for 2% of the scummy sites, you very quickly discover when there is an effective new tactic, and then very quickly shut it down for 100% of scummy sites. > Much like all social media sites end up overran by grandmas. I think this is specific to Facebook, possibly because of the real-name policy. Is TikTok or Twitter overrun by grandmas?

tayo42 3y ago

Idk about it being just money. I think the biggest issue is algorithm based discovery. Algorithms don't really reward being different, they often encourage more of the same. you liked this so here more of this. Now if you want your content to be seen you need to cater to how content is discovered. Money imo comes into play by people who realized that algorithms can be gamed to get bs to the top. The core problem is still algorithm based discovery. Even if you take away people who are focused on money.

SoftTalker 3y ago

> I'm afraid the old internet is simply gone forever. Are there no more hobbyist-curated lists of good content on whatever is their topic of interest? Are they just impossible to find on modern search engines, or have the communities just given up on maintaining them?