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The original dream of the internet: Information, freely available to any who want it. The new dream of the internet: Some information, that aligns with the val

The original dream of the internet: Information, freely available to any who want it. The new dream of the internet: Some information, that aligns with the values of our advertisers, delivered via an LLM that sometimes makes shit up.

seanp2k2 2y ago
Yeah, each year we inch closer to an internet where the only things to do revolve around buying things; watch “content” which mostly revolves around creators shilling products, research products, or buy products. Every hobby has to be monetized now, everything has to be a side hustle, every impression monetized. Few seem to bother anymore with personal blogs that exist for their own enjoyment and sharing of knowledge, and yet with all this paid creation, full-time artists struggle more than ever, largely unable to afford living costs in the very cities they helped to build the culture and value of. I find it personally difficult to look at the entirety of the internet in 2024 and say that it’s definitely better for society than it was in 2004. I guess now at least we can mostly book appointments on our phones without having to speak with someone in real-time as they read dates and times off of a calendar interface that we can now just use ourselves directly.
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  There's nothing wrong with people trying to make money on the internet. You can sit in your bubble of personal dislikes and preferences, whining about average people using a very accessible tool to try to make a living for themselves, just like you presumably do in some way or another, but why not instead see the bigger picture of an internet in which not all things are shit and not all commercialization is automatically bad. Personal blogs, creative efforts and wonderful resources still abound on the internet and can still usually be found quite easily if you put a bit of effort into looking.
hotspot_one 2y ago
and where the information you are looking for is plastered with ads. yes I know adblocker, pihole, etc.
southernplaces7 2y ago
Whose dream? It's specifically here on HN that I find the largest number of comments bitching about the uselessness of the internet and how they replaced their own search efforts with just asking a hallucinating LLM, as if they had no choice in the matter. Great way to help make things better friends.... If anything the internet today is more loaded than ever with cool information and useful stuff, especially as ever larger bodies of formerly analog content get digitized and often with full open access. If one can get over their myopic naval gazing and cultivation of fetishism about everything having gone to shit, it's not even hard to find most of that useful information. The internet -like any complex thing with multiple interests involved in its existence and operation- is just whatever works best for different people in different contexts, commercially, personally, technically and so forth. It's neither an ideal that one should obsess over or something to be neatly pigeonholed into a box of how it "should be". Adapt, use its tools to make whatever parts of it you can fit whatever your personal ideal is, instead of endlessly blaming advertisers or people just trying to make a living from one more commercial landscape.

seanp2k2 2y ago

Yeah, each year we inch closer to an internet where the only things to do revolve around buying things; watch “content” which mostly revolves around creators shilling products, research products, or buy products. Every hobby has to be monetized now, everything has to be a side hustle, every impression monetized. Few seem to bother anymore with personal blogs that exist for their own enjoyment and sharing of knowledge, and yet with all this paid creation, full-time artists struggle more than ever, largely unable to afford living costs in the very cities they helped to build the culture and value of. I find it personally difficult to look at the entirety of the internet in 2024 and say that it’s definitely better for society than it was in 2004. I guess now at least we can mostly book appointments on our phones without having to speak with someone in real-time as they read dates and times off of a calendar interface that we can now just use ourselves directly.

southernplaces7 2y ago
There's nothing wrong with people trying to make money on the internet. You can sit in your bubble of personal dislikes and preferences, whining about average people using a very accessible tool to try to make a living for themselves, just like you presumably do in some way or another, but why not instead see the bigger picture of an internet in which not all things are shit and not all commercialization is automatically bad. Personal blogs, creative efforts and wonderful resources still abound on the internet and can still usually be found quite easily if you put a bit of effort into looking.

hotspot_one 2y ago

and where the information you are looking for is plastered with ads. yes I know adblocker, pihole, etc.

southernplaces7 2y ago

Whose dream? It's specifically here on HN that I find the largest number of comments bitching about the uselessness of the internet and how they replaced their own search efforts with just asking a hallucinating LLM, as if they had no choice in the matter. Great way to help make things better friends.... If anything the internet today is more loaded than ever with cool information and useful stuff, especially as ever larger bodies of formerly analog content get digitized and often with full open access. If one can get over their myopic naval gazing and cultivation of fetishism about everything having gone to shit, it's not even hard to find most of that useful information. The internet -like any complex thing with multiple interests involved in its existence and operation- is just whatever works best for different people in different contexts, commercially, personally, technically and so forth. It's neither an ideal that one should obsess over or something to be neatly pigeonholed into a box of how it "should be". Adapt, use its tools to make whatever parts of it you can fit whatever your personal ideal is, instead of endlessly blaming advertisers or people just trying to make a living from one more commercial landscape.