Google's enshittification memos
(pluralistic.net)
from stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 2023 23:56
https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/511069
from stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 2023 23:56
https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/511069
When I think about how the old, good internet turned into the enshitternet, I imagine a series of small compromises, each seemingly reasonable at the time, each contributing to a cultural norm of making good things worse, and worse, and worse.
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Well that was a good read.
It’s terrifying that the only way to win these days is to just never have been born. Even if you don’t play, someone you interact with online is and you get taken in that way.
All to sell you ads for things you don’t need or care about.
Glad I came back to read this one after passing over it earlier.
When it comes to Google, I find it completely absurd how people are OK with a giant ad / spy company saving and profiting from their private searches. Their entire lives, every sensitive query, stored in their databases. Why is this accepted? Completely shocking actually.
They are basing their entire profit model on spying on users privacy and selling it to advertisers. Doesn’t that make you sick to your stomach?
How do you look stuff up?
I use duckduckgo but wouldn’t return good results sometimes.
Kagi, it’s amazing.
I used to use ddg a few years ago but it wasn’t good enough to completely leave Google search.
Kagi is even better than Google. Highly recommend you try it, it makes the web feel fresh again.
I just read the article. I’m stunned.
I’ve noticed in the past year or so that duckduckgo would return all results of one brand or similar websites no matter what general term I add.
I know ddg send query to search engines but I didn’t know google was the culprit. I thought ddg sucks.
Kagi sounds good. I’ll definitely give it a shot. Hopefully it’ll not get acquired by google or microsoft.
Okay i will have to Google for Kagi since you didn’t provide a link… /s
Edit: Kagi requires a login just to search? Wtf? And it’s $10 per month?? Hahaha forget it! Bye!
Google doesn’t return good results either though.
If you want best effort, use DDG as your main search. If the first query doesn’t bring back what you want add g! to it and it will redirect to Google. yt! goes to YouTube, b! goes to bing, w! Wikipedia, etc.
I think google peaked in 2016 and since then it’s in steady decline.
I use to assume if google didn’t return good results then no enough content is on the web.
Thanks for the tip!
Big fan of kagi.com. rock-solid privacy policy (seriously, I am one of those guys who read them all, this is probably the best I have seen), excellent search results and very nice features (lensed to search in specific contexts only - say, programming, up/down ranking of sites as you prefer, automatic rewriting of urls, custom bangs). The cons, is that it’s a paid service. I am personally a customer since November 2022, never looked back.
Damn. This makes so much sense but is also so disheartening.
They had essentially a perfect product and a total monopoly over their market. Apparently, even that isn’t enough for some executives.
What’s even the point of trying to double or triple dip at that point? Maybe they made more money in the decade they got away with it, but the product is considerably worse than it used to be and now their dirty laundry is out in the open.
Shit’s depressing.
It would be nice if a monopoly would lead to the user getting the best possible product, but that is unfortunately not the case. Companies rise and fall through the enshittification and other companies have the opportunity to fill this gap. There will always be someone to fill the gaps. And is that so bad when companies only have a limited life span and new companies get a chance and bring in fresh air?
Pure enshittification, squeezing both sides. I had no idea on this part but that would explain a lot, fuckin wild