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It’s been talked about here before, but fundamentally it’s when the advertising guys won the power struggle over the search engine guys. Previously, advertising

It’s been talked about here before, but fundamentally it’s when the advertising guys won the power struggle over the search engine guys. Previously, advertising was a means to fund cool technology (and also get filthy rich). Now it’s just a way to make the number perpetually go up, sucking every last drop of value out of the system. Plus the complete lack of vision or strategy from Google’s senior leadership.

kibwen 2y ago
The paperclip maximizer reports steady and heartening progress on converting all available matter in the Earth system to paperclips. Shares of $PCLIP are up 20% on the news.
- 0_____0 2y ago
  Universal Paperclips was my favorite piece of art I interacted with this year (so far). It really affected how I think about what I'm doing, and what humanity is doing as a whole.
  - eddd-ddde 2y ago
    Ultimately I think humans are innate optimizers. It's the reason why I stay playing factorio until late at night, because I want to see those production graphs go up up up.
    - lowbloodsugar 2y ago
      Ugh, but having to grind fish, fish! just to get a spidertron with a reasonable amount of lasers…
      - marcosdumay 2y ago
        Does the spidertron cost increase on the space expansion or anything? I've always built as many as I wanted from the fish I get by accident while building other stuff.
        BlueTemplar 2y ago
        You can even cultivate fish in the Space Age. It involves interplanetary logistics though.
        lowbloodsugar 2y ago
        I just built my first fish farm and it appears that one cannot improve the quality of fish. Anyway, I had enough bits lying around to build 5 spidertron as soon as I unlocked the tech so I guess it’s pretty simple. I copied Nilaus’ parameterized mini-mall and then adapted that for assemblers and biochambers so maybe it just seemed easier.
cen4 2y ago
Most importantly Content keeps exploding. Total available human Attention does not grow. So how does Adtech generate more and more revenue and sells more and more ads year on year? Simple answer - Fraud.
- mattnewton 2y ago
  Advertisers are locked into an arms race for attention with each other. Even if you were stuck with the same slice of eyeball time, you can still grow by selling it for more, and in many ways that's what google's auctions are set up to do. But google's investment in youtube in particular has steadily grown the eyeball-time they have access to as well. I'm not ruling out fraud but I don't see how these facts prove fraud, it seems more like google continuing to naturally benefit from the decline of traditional print and television media.
  - causality0 2y ago
    Sometimes I wonder what fraction of people employed in advertising think they're making the world better by exposing customers to good products and what percentage aren't in denial about the fact they're weaving dollars out of human misery.
    - dasil003 2y ago
      Never worked in ad tech so no incentive to see things one way or the other. I do think it’s sad that so much brain power has gone into it, but “weaving dollars out of human misery” is a bit much.
      - walleeee 2y ago
        Indeed, it's not fair to lay all the blame at the feet of the middling adtech worker. Plus a good fraction of the fibers are certified non-human.
- araes 2y ago
  Similar to my own thoughts on the issue. It's a lot like the credit card issuing banks. Two notable big names, Wells Fargo and Bank of America both "illegally used or obtained consumers’ credit reports, and then applied for and enrolled consumers in credit card accounts without consumers’ knowledge or authorization." [1][2] Banks had each employee need to sell 50 credit cards a month. Employees sold 50 a month. Banks needed "line goes up" for every quarter. Banks had each employee sell 100 a month. Employee's tried to sell 100 a month. Banks needed "line goes up." Eventually market was saturated, yet banks said sell 1000 credit cards a month. Employees replied, "we cannot, market is saturated." Bank said "sell 1000 a month." Employee's responded with "make shit up, open accounts without consumers knowledge." Fraud. [1] (Wells Fargo, millions of accounts, $3B civil settlement, $3.7B CFPB judgement, 2020), https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wells-fargo-agrees-pay-3-billion-resolve-criminal-and-civil-investigations-sales-practices https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wells-fargo-agrees-pay-3-bill..., https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/07/11/bank-of-america-fined-250-million-over-fake-accounts-and-illegal-junk-fees/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/07/11/bank-of-ame... [2] (Bank of America, unspecified # of accounts, 2023) https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/bank-of-america-for-illegally-charging-junk-fees-withholding-credit-card-rewards-opening-fake-accounts/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/bank-of-am...
panarchy 2y ago
> Plus the complete lack of vision or strategy from Google’s senior leadership. I genuinely can't think of one impressive thing Google has done in the last 15 years. Search peaked in like 2009 Maps has only become slower and less informative (I remember when it use to actually display everything that was in a location and not just the popular/paid for stuff) since 2009 Google Docs was incredibly impressive... in 2006 and now almost 20 years later there's been a few QoL improvements, but nothing wow worthy. And it seems everything else they've done has been shuttered and/or wasn't all that innovative in the first place and usually just trying to copy someone else work but in an uninspired way.
- viraptor 2y ago
  > can't think of one impressive thing Google has done in the last 15 years Android is getting genuinely better. Also AndroidAuto.
  - askvictor 2y ago
    If, by better, you mean more locked down, and with incremental tweaks, sure. I would much rather have Android from 5 years ago, and the ability to make it work how I want, than what there is now.
    - viraptor 2y ago
      You still can have seen Android from 5 years ago experience. There's lots of custom ROMs for that. On the other hand, for an average person, I believe Android is better today in most ways.
      - Eavolution 2y ago
        They exist but I can't use them because I need my bank apps to work, and magisk can only trick some of them.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
"Previously, advertising was a means to fund cool technology (and also get filthy rich)." What is advertising now. Is it possible that the "technology" being funded is "the delivery of advertising over a computer network". Is that "cool technology". If not, then is the "cool technology" serving as bait to lure in ad targets, i.e., is it merely a component of the advertising services technology. Why not sell or license the "cool technology" for fees instead of hiring "advertising guys". Why can't this unspecified "cool technology" exist on its own. The parent comment implies there is "value" in "the system", presumably independent of advertising.
- lupire 2y ago
  If you've been on the Internet during the last 20 years, you'd notice that people in general aren't willing to pay for something if something cheaper exists, and the "cost equivalent" of advertising exposure is perceived as extremely, extremely low, even by people who dislike advertising.
crazygringo 2y ago
> but fundamentally it’s when the advertising guys won the power struggle over the search engine guys How would that explain Google search results getting worse though? Ads only get viewed as long as Search is high quality and people don't switch to a competitor. Ads fill up the top with sponsored results, but they don't affect the organic results. If by "the advertising guys won" you mean they got more sponsored slots, all that means is they got more sponsored slots. It doesn't affect the quality of organic results. So I don't understand what your theory is here.
- youoy 2y ago
  > Ads only get viewed as long as Search is high quality and people don't switch to a competitor. This is what someone thinking long term would conclude. On the contrary, lowering the quality of your search causes people to spend more time in the search engine since they have to try more searches. This in turn increases the probability of clicking an ad.
ayberk 2y ago
Yeah, you can't talk about the deterioration of Google without talking about the deterioration of the culture at Google. I didn't like working at AWS for the most part, but I have never seen Google-level dysfunction there. There were a lot of times I disagreed with decision, but I could always understand the reasoning behind it. On the contrary, I can't explain most of the decision being made at Google. The enshittification from the very top has been amazing to watch, even for someone like me who joined only 3.5 years ago. Both senior and mid-level leadership lack a clear vision and the execution has obviously been horrible. Google needs a hard reset if they want to be successful again. I'm not buying the "too-big-to-fail" bullshit.
1oooqooq 2y ago
it's even earlier. when the search engine guys won over the diverse team of web surfers. search engine was the automation of cheap labour. but early search relief heavily on the ranks early sites won by directory era curation. search engine tech was unknowingly piggy backing on work from the surfers. it would crumble for sure since there were no more surfers. AI just made it extremely obviously that Its done.
int_19h 2y ago
"The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users... advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers." — The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, 1998
yencabulator 2y ago
Thought experiment: Boeing letting McDonnell Douglas take over Google letting DoubleClick take over

kibwen 2y ago

The paperclip maximizer reports steady and heartening progress on converting all available matter in the Earth system to paperclips. Shares of $PCLIP are up 20% on the news.

0_____0 2y ago
Universal Paperclips was my favorite piece of art I interacted with this year (so far). It really affected how I think about what I'm doing, and what humanity is doing as a whole.
- eddd-ddde 2y ago
  Ultimately I think humans are innate optimizers. It's the reason why I stay playing factorio until late at night, because I want to see those production graphs go up up up.
  - lowbloodsugar 2y ago
    Ugh, but having to grind fish, fish! just to get a spidertron with a reasonable amount of lasers…
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      Does the spidertron cost increase on the space expansion or anything? I've always built as many as I wanted from the fish I get by accident while building other stuff.
      - BlueTemplar 2y ago
        You can even cultivate fish in the Space Age. It involves interplanetary logistics though.
      - lowbloodsugar 2y ago
        I just built my first fish farm and it appears that one cannot improve the quality of fish. Anyway, I had enough bits lying around to build 5 spidertron as soon as I unlocked the tech so I guess it’s pretty simple. I copied Nilaus’ parameterized mini-mall and then adapted that for assemblers and biochambers so maybe it just seemed easier.

cen4 2y ago

Most importantly Content keeps exploding. Total available human Attention does not grow. So how does Adtech generate more and more revenue and sells more and more ads year on year? Simple answer - Fraud.

mattnewton 2y ago
Advertisers are locked into an arms race for attention with each other. Even if you were stuck with the same slice of eyeball time, you can still grow by selling it for more, and in many ways that's what google's auctions are set up to do. But google's investment in youtube in particular has steadily grown the eyeball-time they have access to as well. I'm not ruling out fraud but I don't see how these facts prove fraud, it seems more like google continuing to naturally benefit from the decline of traditional print and television media.
- causality0 2y ago
  Sometimes I wonder what fraction of people employed in advertising think they're making the world better by exposing customers to good products and what percentage aren't in denial about the fact they're weaving dollars out of human misery.
  - dasil003 2y ago
    Never worked in ad tech so no incentive to see things one way or the other. I do think it’s sad that so much brain power has gone into it, but “weaving dollars out of human misery” is a bit much.
    - walleeee 2y ago
      Indeed, it's not fair to lay all the blame at the feet of the middling adtech worker. Plus a good fraction of the fibers are certified non-human.
araes 2y ago
Similar to my own thoughts on the issue. It's a lot like the credit card issuing banks. Two notable big names, Wells Fargo and Bank of America both "illegally used or obtained consumers’ credit reports, and then applied for and enrolled consumers in credit card accounts without consumers’ knowledge or authorization." [1][2] Banks had each employee need to sell 50 credit cards a month. Employees sold 50 a month. Banks needed "line goes up" for every quarter. Banks had each employee sell 100 a month. Employee's tried to sell 100 a month. Banks needed "line goes up." Eventually market was saturated, yet banks said sell 1000 credit cards a month. Employees replied, "we cannot, market is saturated." Bank said "sell 1000 a month." Employee's responded with "make shit up, open accounts without consumers knowledge." Fraud. [1] (Wells Fargo, millions of accounts, $3B civil settlement, $3.7B CFPB judgement, 2020), https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wells-fargo-agrees-pay-3-billion-resolve-criminal-and-civil-investigations-sales-practices https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wells-fargo-agrees-pay-3-bill..., https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/07/11/bank-of-america-fined-250-million-over-fake-accounts-and-illegal-junk-fees/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/07/11/bank-of-ame... [2] (Bank of America, unspecified # of accounts, 2023) https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/bank-of-america-for-illegally-charging-junk-fees-withholding-credit-card-rewards-opening-fake-accounts/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/bank-of-am...

panarchy 2y ago

> Plus the complete lack of vision or strategy from Google’s senior leadership. I genuinely can't think of one impressive thing Google has done in the last 15 years. Search peaked in like 2009 Maps has only become slower and less informative (I remember when it use to actually display everything that was in a location and not just the popular/paid for stuff) since 2009 Google Docs was incredibly impressive... in 2006 and now almost 20 years later there's been a few QoL improvements, but nothing wow worthy. And it seems everything else they've done has been shuttered and/or wasn't all that innovative in the first place and usually just trying to copy someone else work but in an uninspired way.

viraptor 2y ago
> can't think of one impressive thing Google has done in the last 15 years Android is getting genuinely better. Also AndroidAuto.
- askvictor 2y ago
  If, by better, you mean more locked down, and with incremental tweaks, sure. I would much rather have Android from 5 years ago, and the ability to make it work how I want, than what there is now.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    You still can have seen Android from 5 years ago experience. There's lots of custom ROMs for that. On the other hand, for an average person, I believe Android is better today in most ways.
    - Eavolution 2y ago
      They exist but I can't use them because I need my bank apps to work, and magisk can only trick some of them.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

"Previously, advertising was a means to fund cool technology (and also get filthy rich)." What is advertising now. Is it possible that the "technology" being funded is "the delivery of advertising over a computer network". Is that "cool technology". If not, then is the "cool technology" serving as bait to lure in ad targets, i.e., is it merely a component of the advertising services technology. Why not sell or license the "cool technology" for fees instead of hiring "advertising guys". Why can't this unspecified "cool technology" exist on its own. The parent comment implies there is "value" in "the system", presumably independent of advertising.

lupire 2y ago
If you've been on the Internet during the last 20 years, you'd notice that people in general aren't willing to pay for something if something cheaper exists, and the "cost equivalent" of advertising exposure is perceived as extremely, extremely low, even by people who dislike advertising.

crazygringo 2y ago

> but fundamentally it’s when the advertising guys won the power struggle over the search engine guys How would that explain Google search results getting worse though? Ads only get viewed as long as Search is high quality and people don't switch to a competitor. Ads fill up the top with sponsored results, but they don't affect the organic results. If by "the advertising guys won" you mean they got more sponsored slots, all that means is they got more sponsored slots. It doesn't affect the quality of organic results. So I don't understand what your theory is here.

youoy 2y ago
> Ads only get viewed as long as Search is high quality and people don't switch to a competitor. This is what someone thinking long term would conclude. On the contrary, lowering the quality of your search causes people to spend more time in the search engine since they have to try more searches. This in turn increases the probability of clicking an ad.

ayberk 2y ago

Yeah, you can't talk about the deterioration of Google without talking about the deterioration of the culture at Google. I didn't like working at AWS for the most part, but I have never seen Google-level dysfunction there. There were a lot of times I disagreed with decision, but I could always understand the reasoning behind it. On the contrary, I can't explain most of the decision being made at Google. The enshittification from the very top has been amazing to watch, even for someone like me who joined only 3.5 years ago. Both senior and mid-level leadership lack a clear vision and the execution has obviously been horrible. Google needs a hard reset if they want to be successful again. I'm not buying the "too-big-to-fail" bullshit.

1oooqooq 2y ago

it's even earlier. when the search engine guys won over the diverse team of web surfers. search engine was the automation of cheap labour. but early search relief heavily on the ranks early sites won by directory era curation. search engine tech was unknowingly piggy backing on work from the surfers. it would crumble for sure since there were no more surfers. AI just made it extremely obviously that Its done.

int_19h 2y ago

"The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users... advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers." — The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, 1998

yencabulator 2y ago

Thought experiment: Boeing letting McDonnell Douglas take over Google letting DoubleClick take over