How Google Ruined the Internet

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He's a hyperkinetic politically extreme whacko. For a while there during the early days of "Adam Ruins Everything" he was good, but he drifted into far left.

I tried watching the vid you posted, but only got a couple minutes in before the meth-schtick became overwhelming.
 
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@overscan (PaulMM) The hyperactive presentation isn't my cup of tea, but the message is on point. Thank you.
 
I have zero patience with talking heads. Can someone briefly summarize the message ?
 
- Google earns its income from advertisements.
- To maximise its income, it tailors its search engine to present websites that show those advertisements.
- Websites are configured to optimise their presentation near the top of the search results.
- Uniform sites result, with what's left of information drowning in search-optimised dross.
- AI is making things worse.

Google is the default search engine because it pays companies like Apple to present it as such, pushing other search engines to irrelevance. Anti-trust laws should be enforced against Google, just as Microsoft experienced.
 
The user search experience gets progressively worse, as they don't care about it at all, only ad revenues. You not finding a fair review site, but ending up clicking on a fake review site that paid Google for your clicks and invested in SEO tricks, is BETTER for them - their customer (the advertiser) got a return on their investment. Meanwhile you buy a shoddy product made by a third rate Chinese ripoff company.

This reached something of a peak for me in the last week at work when a malware group created a site called "priwnote.com" as fake version of the legitimate one time destructible note site "privnote.com" and then paid Google a large wad of money to capture all searches for 'privnote.com' and direct them to "priwnote.com" via Adwords. All 'legit'.

This site is often used to share passwords and other information in self-destroying notes, so this was squarely an attempt to steal credentials from people. We ended up blocking all traffic to priwnote.com to save users from themselves.

Google literally could not give less of a fuck. Priwnote.com paid for their traffic, Google will keep sending it to them. There is no way to complain about it, or contact Google about it other than attempting to raise the issue on social media.

DAYS later, Google are still sending hapless users who search for privnote.com to priwnote.com, where their passwords are harvested by god-knows-who for god-knows-what. When will they stop? Presumably when a big site picks up the story and it starts to embarass them.

Meanwhile Google bribes Apple $18 billion a year to keep using their search engine. The enshittification of the internet proceeds apace.
 
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Orionblamblam said:
He's a hyperkinetic politically extreme whacko. For a while there during the early days of "Adam Ruins Everything" he was good, but he drifted into far left.

I tried watching the vid you posted, but only got a couple minutes in before the meth-schtick became overwhelming.
Click to expand...
You ever see him on Rogan? It was hysterical. Brutal.
 
Arjen said:
- Google earns its income from advertisements.
- To maximise its income, it tailors its search engine to present websites that show those advertisements.
- Websites are configured to optimise their presentation near the top of the search results.
- Uniform sites result, with what's left of information drowning in search-optimised dross.
- AI is making things worse.

Google is the default search engine because it pays companies like Apple to present it as such, pushing other search engines to irrelevance. Anti-trust laws should be enforced against Google, just as Microsoft experienced.
Click to expand...
'If you think it's free, then you're the product' is the rule.
 
For a brief period a few years ago I used to wonder why Google kept discontinuing useful tools to narrow down your search results. There was a time when, with some skill, you could compose your query so cunningly, that (at least for English language searches) it was hardly ever necessary to look beyond the first page of results. Then I figured out the dynamic explained here and wondered no more.

The one thing I haven't quite been able to determine is whether it was inevitable or not. Realistically speaking, a pay-to-play model (as briefly suggested in the video) was a non-starter. Sure, if you were to ask me today I'd say "Absolutely, why not?". But 20-year old me, while having a vague inkling that it was a good idea and why, would have said "No, I don't have the money and all available payment models are super awkward".

At the same time, Google's very rise to dominance demonstrates that it is entirely feasible to prevail against the competition on merit rather than sheer financial clout. Can you be profitable though? Not sure, maybe somebody can research their financial statements and work out whether their initial phase of user-orientated service was merely a deliberate laying of the ground work for a later lucrative monopoly, or if it unintentionally succumbed to incentives that strongly promoted corporate greed.

An idea which seems alien, even dangerous that nevertheless has occurred to me is a "public search engine". Hear me out - it seems to continue to work reasonably well in the field of broadcasting. Public broadcasting institutions certainly have their share of flaws, but many examples show that with appropriate firewalls and checks and balances they deliver a much superior product to private networks. Decidedly not optimal, but still markedly better if done right. At least for non-entertainment purposes anyway, but that's exactly where it's most critical, right?
 
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One article I read a few months ago pointed out that google often doesn't search for the term you enter, but for one rewritten to prioritise advertiser results. So a query for X may be executed as 'who sells X', etc.
 
Yes, I've been noticing that for approximately 2 years now. Very annoying, especially as their dumbing down of the search tools leaves you relatively powerless to do anything about it.
 
DWG said:
One article I read a few months ago pointed out that google often doesn't search for the term you enter, but for one rewritten to prioritise advertiser results. So a query for X may be executed as 'who sells X', etc.
Click to expand...
I have noticed that, too. Also that when I do accronym-loaded searches (hint: NASA, NRO) the search engine ruins it trying to enforce spellcheck - resulting in nonsensical garbage I have to ignore.

Also, looking for a) car problems and b) electric cars long-term loans : only results in garbage. No idea whether this is a matter of the aforementioned enshittification, but it looks pretty similar.
 
Archibald said:
I have noticed that, too. Also that when I do accronym-loaded searches (hint: NASA, NRO) the search engine ruins it trying to enforce spellcheck - resulting in nonsensical garbage I have to ignore
Click to expand...

I almost made exactly the same point. Even when I'm not searching for acronyms I'm often searching for obscure terms, often in other languages, and I rarely make spelling errors. Speel-chuckers are a menace and I would love a settings option to turn them off.
 
Orionblamblam said:
I will note for the record that this is not what I wrote. It was censored by moderators who apparently disliked what I actually and *accurately* said. Which is both ironic and disturbing.
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Some people can't handle power and/or lack integrity. One would have thought there would be a higher bar for moderators.
 
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sublight_ said:
Yes, everybody on Youtube sounds like a car salesman that just did a line of cocaine on the hood of a Dodge Challenger scatpack.
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There are actually a lot of decent channels on Youtube. Sure, to paraphrase Cartman, "you have to wade through a lot of crap to find gold" but it's there.
 
sferrin said:
There are actually a lot of decent channels on Youtube. Sure, to paraphrase Cartman, "you have to wade through a lot of crap to find gold" but it's there.
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You are right there. It took me many years to find good content on YouTube. The problem is that either the algorithm stifles the potential reach of good content in favor of safe, ad-friendly content, or YouTube moderation shadowbans good content for "violating" their doublespeak terms of service.
 
As an old fa*t I would say that finding books or magazines that interest me has got steadily harder as publishers and shops focus on subjects like cooking, gardening or romantic novels. Charity shops then also get dumped with such books.
The Internet has Wikipedia and Youtube without which I for one would be lost. Facebook keeps me in touch with those demented enough to share my interests.
Frankly I have no interest in the political stuff and confine my doses to BBC World Service news.
 
Ed Zitron has a series of recent newsletters covering the enshittification of the internet, starting with this one. He goes into some of what is publicly known about the behind the scenes decisions that led to the deterioration of search. He also goes into Meta and recent AI-hype-machine Rabbit in other newsletters.
 
But do you know who has? Sundar Pichai, who previously worked at McKinsey — arguably the most morally abhorrent company that has ever existed, having played roles both in the 2008 financial crisis (where it encouraged banks to load up on debt and flawed mortgage-backed securities) and the ongoing opioid crisis, where it effectively advised Purdue Pharma on how to “growth hack” sales of Oxycontin. McKinsey has paid nearly $1bn over several settlements due to its work with Purdue. I’m getting sidetracked, but one last point. McKinsey is actively anti-labor. When a company brings in a McKinsey consultant, they’re often there to advise on how to “cut costs,” which inevitably means layoffs and outsourcing. McKinsey is to the middle class what flesh-eating bacteria is to healthy tissue.
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(Young Sheldon voice) Oh dear. Same McKinsey that was used by French President Macron, and triggered one heck of a colossal political shitstorm. I see that they have... pedigree on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Sweet Jesus.
 
Trident said:
For a brief period a few years ago I used to wonder why Google kept discontinuing useful tools to narrow down your search results. There was a time when, with some skill, you could compose your query so cunningly, that (at least for English language searches) it was hardly ever necessary to look beyond the first page of results. Then I figured out the dynamic explained here and wondered no more.

The one thing I haven't quite been able to determine is whether it was inevitable or not. Realistically speaking, a pay-to-play model (as briefly suggested in the video) was a non-starter. Sure, if you were to ask me today I'd say "Absolutely, why not?". But 20-year old me, while having a vague inkling that it was a good idea and why, would have said "No, I don't have the money and all available payment models are super awkward".

At the same time, Google's very rise to dominance demonstrates that it is entirely feasible to prevail against the competition on merit rather than sheer financial clout. Can you be profitable though? Not sure, maybe somebody can research their financial statements and work out whether their initial phase of user-orientated service was merely a deliberate laying of the ground work for a later lucrative monopoly, or if it unintentionally succumbed to incentives that strongly promoted corporate greed.

An idea which seems alien, even dangerous that nevertheless has occurred to me is a "public search engine". Hear me out - it seems to continue to work reasonably well in the field of broadcasting. Public broadcasting institutions certainly have their share of flaws, but many examples show that with appropriate firewalls and checks and balances they deliver a much superior product to private networks. Decidedly not optimal, but still markedly better if done right. At least for non-entertainment purposes anyway, but that's exactly where it's most critical, right?
Click to expand...

The parent company of Google is called Alphabet. Monopoly control is the goal. Various legal actions have occurred.

insights.issgovernance.com

Google Parent Alphabet Agrees to Pay Shareholders $350 Million Over Data Leak

To avoid public and regulatory scrutiny, Google’s officers and directors purportedly conceived a plan to conceal the security glitch and other systemic vulnerabilities.
insights.issgovernance.com insights.issgovernance.com

finance.yahoo.com

Google hit with $2.3 billion lawsuit by Axel Springer, other media groups

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Alphabet's Google was hit with a 2.1-billion-euro ($2.3 billion) lawsuit by 32 media groups including Axel Springer and Schibsted on Wednesday, alleging that they had suffered losses due to the company's practices in digital advertising. The move by the group - which include...
finance.yahoo.com finance.yahoo.com

 
MrTopaz said:
He goes into some of what is publicly known about the behind the scenes decisions that led to the deterioration of search.
Click to expand...

“ An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents with Me; Everyone in SEO Should See Them”

sparktoro.com

An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents with Me; Everyone in SEO Should See Them - SparkToro

On Sunday, May 5th, I received an email from a person claiming to have access to a massive leak of API documentation from inside Google’s Search division.
sparktoro.com

This “leaked” today and provides more insights into how Googles search is currently ranking and displaying results.
 
Hmm, interesting conversation here. 2009 to 2015 I was in a couple online health support groups for autoimmune disease and somehow became very good at locating online research documents to answer questions other members had. 31 times out of 32 Google would drop exactly what I wanted right in my lap.
Even today Google and I seem to mostly be on the same wavelength about what I'm looking for.
Except when my search terms include some technical word that's also an automobile part. :mad:
 
Orionblamblam said:
I will note for the record that this is not what I wrote. It was censored by moderators who apparently disliked what I actually and *accurately* said. Which is both ironic and disturbing.
Click to expand...
I can see it was edited by a moderator but not the original post.

If you have an issue with a moderator edit please contact me privately. Moderators deserve respect on the forum. Moderators are also human and can make mistakes. Allow them the respect of being corrected privately when needed.

If you feel the edit changes the meaning of the post, you can send me the original comment for a second opinion.
 
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southwestforests said:
Hmm, interesting conversation here. 2009 to 2015 I was in a couple online health support groups for autoimmune disease and somehow became very good at locating online research documents to answer questions other members had. 31 times out of 32 Google would drop exactly what I wanted right in my lap.
Even today Google and I seem to mostly be on the same wavelength about what I'm looking for.
Except when my search terms include some technical word that's also an automobile part. :mad:
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until the last few years, Google search was awesome.

The recent changes are all intended to stop you finding what you want, and instead show you what the advertisers have paid for you to see, regardless if it satisfies your search.

The silent rewriting of search terms to vaguely related ones that people have paid Adwords for is the most egregious offender, because it is basically defrauding both the searcher - by altering what you looked for - and the advertiser - by pretending the searcher was looking for the Adwords term they paid for when if fact they didn't.

So advertisers are paying for bemused searchers who weren't even looking for the thing Google is showing them.
 
sferrin said:
Some people can't handle power and/or lack integrity. One would have thought there would be a higher bar for moderators.
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Please refrain from comments like these in future. You are just trying to throw oil on a fire.

You don't know what was edited, or why. Speculating that moderators 'lack integrity' is unwelcome, to put it mildly.
 
uk 75 said:
Frankly I have no interest in the political stuff and confine my doses to BBC World Service news.
Click to expand...

See what I mean? Everybody likes to bitch about the Beeb, but what even the most vocal critics can never seem to come up with is a superior, non-public alternative. Not even close in fact. A model to at least control the damage (not going to dignify it with the term "solution"), perhaps?
 
The World Service (perhaps because its staff come from many nations) has managed to remain a decent news provider.
BBC Radio 4 and TV long ago fell victim to the infotainment virus and are ego trips for overpaid presenters.
 
Trident said:
See what I mean? Everybody likes to bitch about the Beeb, but what even the most vocal critics can never seem to come up with is a superior, non-public alternative. Not even close in fact. A model to at least control the damage (not going to dignify it with the term "solution"), perhaps?
Click to expand...
https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/

an interesting resource to look up your own frequently used news providers. 1716944074047.png
 
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