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It’s crazy on the web when you point out that google or google products used to be much better in the past someone will come out of nowhere to tell you it’s alw

It’s crazy on the web when you point out that google or google products used to be much better in the past someone will come out of nowhere to tell you it’s always been that way what is this instinct? anyone that’s over the age of 25 would know

h2zizzle 1y ago
Many people who post here are, were, or would like to be Googlers. Maybe not so much astroturfing ao much as a kind of corporate hasbara (though maybe both).
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > Maybe not so much astroturfing as much as a kind of corporate hasbara What's the difference? In astroturfing, someone pays people to form an organization, claim to have no external support, and do some kind of activism. In hasbara, the government of Israel pays people to not form an organization, claim to have no external support, and do various kinds of pro-Israel and pro-Jew activism. This looks like astroturfing with the major vulnerability of the no-external-support claim shored up.
  - h2zizzle 1y ago
    Fair. The main difference is that people here don't like it when you call it astroturfing.
krisoft 1y ago
> what is this instinct? "The rules were you guys weren't going to fact check." The instinct is about pointing out factual inaccuracies. What they wrote is either correct, or not. If it is not, and someone knows better they can and should point that out. If you, or some other commenter, have a fuzzy feeling that google is worse than it used to be you are free to write that. You are perfectly entitled to that opinion. But you can't just make up false statements and expect to be unchallenged and unchallengeable on it.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  Except that jkaptur is the one making up false statements, and then providing "citations" that contradict him. I don't think an instinct to point out inaccuracies can explain that. There would have to be inaccuracies to point out first.
  - JohnMakin 1y ago
    If you believe stuff like this isn’t actual astroturfing, you must face that from somewhere there seems to exist a deeply ingrained belief from a subset of extremely vocal and argumentative people that Google is amazing and if it isnt well that’s just how the web is now (ignore the google man behind the curtain that created the modern web in the first place) and if it’s not that well, it’s always been this way (even if it hasn’t). There is a very strong stance on this site against talking about astroturfing, and I understand it. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out where this general type of sentiment originates. I don’t know any google enthusiasts and am not sure I’ve ever met one. It’s a fairly uncontroversial take on this website and in the tech world that google search has worsened (the degree of which is debateable). Coming out and saying boldly “no it isn’t, you’re lying” is just crazy weird to me and again I’m very curious where that sentiment comes from. see some of the sibling and aunt/uncle comments in this thread to get at a little of what I’m talking about.
    - thaumasiotes 1y ago
      There was a pretty insane comment in this genre a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43951164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43951164 > If Google [had been] broken up 20 years ago [...] [e]veryone would still be paying for email. Some people don't have the foggiest idea what they're talking about. But I don't really see that as suggesting they're part of an organized campaign.
    - cgriswald 1y ago
      All I see here is someone making a claim and someone else making a different claim. They may have erroneously intended the claim in opposition, either missing or interpreting differently the 'interspersed' qualifier. Or, alternatively, they may believe when any ads appeared is more meaningful in the context of this discussion. I think Google search has gone downhill tremendously to the point of near uselessness and have been a Kagi subscriber for awhile, but I don't see astroturf in this instance. Do you have other examples?

h2zizzle 1y ago

Many people who post here are, were, or would like to be Googlers. Maybe not so much astroturfing ao much as a kind of corporate hasbara (though maybe both).

thaumasiotes 1y ago
> Maybe not so much astroturfing as much as a kind of corporate hasbara What's the difference? In astroturfing, someone pays people to form an organization, claim to have no external support, and do some kind of activism. In hasbara, the government of Israel pays people to not form an organization, claim to have no external support, and do various kinds of pro-Israel and pro-Jew activism. This looks like astroturfing with the major vulnerability of the no-external-support claim shored up.
- h2zizzle 1y ago
  Fair. The main difference is that people here don't like it when you call it astroturfing.

krisoft 1y ago

> what is this instinct? "The rules were you guys weren't going to fact check." The instinct is about pointing out factual inaccuracies. What they wrote is either correct, or not. If it is not, and someone knows better they can and should point that out. If you, or some other commenter, have a fuzzy feeling that google is worse than it used to be you are free to write that. You are perfectly entitled to that opinion. But you can't just make up false statements and expect to be unchallenged and unchallengeable on it.

thaumasiotes 1y ago
Except that jkaptur is the one making up false statements, and then providing "citations" that contradict him. I don't think an instinct to point out inaccuracies can explain that. There would have to be inaccuracies to point out first.
- JohnMakin 1y ago
  If you believe stuff like this isn’t actual astroturfing, you must face that from somewhere there seems to exist a deeply ingrained belief from a subset of extremely vocal and argumentative people that Google is amazing and if it isnt well that’s just how the web is now (ignore the google man behind the curtain that created the modern web in the first place) and if it’s not that well, it’s always been this way (even if it hasn’t). There is a very strong stance on this site against talking about astroturfing, and I understand it. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out where this general type of sentiment originates. I don’t know any google enthusiasts and am not sure I’ve ever met one. It’s a fairly uncontroversial take on this website and in the tech world that google search has worsened (the degree of which is debateable). Coming out and saying boldly “no it isn’t, you’re lying” is just crazy weird to me and again I’m very curious where that sentiment comes from. see some of the sibling and aunt/uncle comments in this thread to get at a little of what I’m talking about.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    There was a pretty insane comment in this genre a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43951164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43951164 > If Google [had been] broken up 20 years ago [...] [e]veryone would still be paying for email. Some people don't have the foggiest idea what they're talking about. But I don't really see that as suggesting they're part of an organized campaign.
  - cgriswald 1y ago
    All I see here is someone making a claim and someone else making a different claim. They may have erroneously intended the claim in opposition, either missing or interpreting differently the 'interspersed' qualifier. Or, alternatively, they may believe when any ads appeared is more meaningful in the context of this discussion. I think Google search has gone downhill tremendously to the point of near uselessness and have been a Kagi subscriber for awhile, but I don't see astroturf in this instance. Do you have other examples?