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Imagine if the navigational system of the web could be improved to the point where most users could easily find what they were looking for... so much so, that t

by jingo 13y ago

Imagine if the navigational system of the web could be improved to the point where most users could easily find what they were looking for... so much so, that there was little room for middlemen ("affiliates"). Imagine further that the "calf-cow" model of the web could be replaced with something more decentralized, e.g. a "content-centric" network instead of a "source-centric" one... such that there would be little room for "selling" traffic.

gohrt 13y ago
The web is improved to that point. But there is also a seedy underbelly of selling scams to idiots. What needs to be improved is detection and prosecution of the affiliate scammers.
- dualogy 13y ago
  ... or people could stop being idiots ;)
- jingo 13y ago
  "The web is improved to that point." I respectfully, but strongly, disagree. While you or I might be able to find what we are looking for, we cannot extrapolate this to mean that "users" (in the general sense) can do the same. Moreover, I'm not satisfied with the status quo of locating stuff on the internet. It's better than it used to be, but I believe we can do better - much better.
205guy 13y ago
Much as I would love to take all Internet advertising and its affiliate marketing extremes to some distant planet and nuke it from orbit, I'm afraid the Internet as we know it would go with it. Navigational system == search == google == advertising supported == deception and affiliate marketing fringes. What's the alternative? Search as a public service run by the NSA (oh wait...)?
- jingo 13y ago
  Just because you cannot see an alternative does not mean one does not exist. Furthermore, it does not imply that we should not contemplate alteratives. But since you mentioned it, it's not unfathomable to think that NSA could help the situation. The search technology they develop, e.g. Binney's work with B+ trees, is funded with tax dollars. Maybe the public should be allowed to use it (not the data, necessarily, but the software). I wonder who would argue search technology is some sort of weapons-grade "munitions" like was claimed about cryptography. The benefit might be a dramatic reduction in internet crime without the cost of (over) regulating the internet.

by jingo 13y ago

gohrt 13y ago

The web is improved to that point. But there is also a seedy underbelly of selling scams to idiots. What needs to be improved is detection and prosecution of the affiliate scammers.

dualogy 13y ago
... or people could stop being idiots ;)
jingo 13y ago
"The web is improved to that point." I respectfully, but strongly, disagree. While you or I might be able to find what we are looking for, we cannot extrapolate this to mean that "users" (in the general sense) can do the same. Moreover, I'm not satisfied with the status quo of locating stuff on the internet. It's better than it used to be, but I believe we can do better - much better.

205guy 13y ago

Much as I would love to take all Internet advertising and its affiliate marketing extremes to some distant planet and nuke it from orbit, I'm afraid the Internet as we know it would go with it. Navigational system == search == google == advertising supported == deception and affiliate marketing fringes. What's the alternative? Search as a public service run by the NSA (oh wait...)?

jingo 13y ago
Just because you cannot see an alternative does not mean one does not exist. Furthermore, it does not imply that we should not contemplate alteratives. But since you mentioned it, it's not unfathomable to think that NSA could help the situation. The search technology they develop, e.g. Binney's work with B+ trees, is funded with tax dollars. Maybe the public should be allowed to use it (not the data, necessarily, but the software). I wonder who would argue search technology is some sort of weapons-grade "munitions" like was claimed about cryptography. The benefit might be a dramatic reduction in internet crime without the cost of (over) regulating the internet.