The Toilet Theory of the Internet: Google is serving an audience that wants quick and easy results. That may lead to disaster.
Google is serving an audience that wants quick and easy results. That may lead to disaster.
The results aren’t easy when they’re useless tho.
Particularly an issue when you’re googling an obscure software issue, you just get spammed with the same copy/paste “troubleshooting” steps. Which usually boil down to “reinstall this completely unrelated driver”.
One of the biggest advantages of using Linux over windows is the lack of those endless seo sites while troubleshooting.
oh, they're there and they're just as useless. I'm the kind of person who refuses to remember things so I have been using google search to take me to the particular website which contains that one liner which I know fixes my issue. For the past 4 years or so, I started actually remembering a lot of things because it's impossible to get to those pages through all the spam.
A search for a specific question used to take me to a stack overflow page with that specific wording to which the answer was the specific command and a description of what it does. Now not only does google ignore half the search terms, but the first 5 results are crap websites with a long description which seems to be close to what i'm looking for only to prove to be useless 3 minutes in.
…along with everything else. After all, if you reinstall everything from scratch the problem will maybe go away or you get too tired to go on
Particularly an issue when you’re googling an obscure software issue, you just get spammed with the same copy/paste “troubleshooting” steps. Which usually boil down to “reinstall this completely unrelated driver”.
Just reading this caused a small spike of ice cold fury within my soul
What have new generations been led into thinking that the internet is supposed to be? They dont even know what a directory is or what a file path is, because of design that dumbs things down...
It is important, because what people think the internet is and what they value will affect what it will evolve into.
E.g. wikipedia is reflects somehow my view of the internet in the 2000s (Encarta :D)...but for some people today the internet is just social media...or just videos?
Internet of the 90s and early 2000s were introduced as a library where people consulted text for information. There was an introduction (tutorials), a userbase that's educated and/or eager to learn, and most importantly, it was the wild west where companies didn't think much of except for just having a .com address. This is where our view of search engines come from - to consult with keywords and read.
This is no longer the case. It's no longer seen as a library, but a shopping mall where you have advertisements shoved down your throat and flashy stuff that grab your attention. For people who were born after smartphones and grew up without knowing the early stuff, the search engine is... well, do people know or even care about that?
That's the best way I've heard the current internet being described... One giant shopping mall with ads.
And it sucks.
E.g. wikipedia is reflects somehow my view of the internet in the 2000s (Encarta :D)…but for some people today the internet is just social media…or just videos?
BTW, does anybody know of an offline encyclopedia which works under Wine?
I liked those too.
The Internet for me was about finding texts about fandoms or anything interesting, roleplaying forums, chats and some browser games. Downloading MP3`s once in a while, downloading and printing Star Wars pics.
EDIT:
They dont even know what a directory is or what a file path is, because of design that dumbs things down…
A kiosk with services.
BTW, does anybody know of an offline encyclopedia which works under Wine?
You can download wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
edit: if you really meant you want to see if any old encyclopedias work under wine, I never tried :D
I get all my information about dinosaurs from Dinosaur safari. Not sure about other topics.
They blamed us when news for shitty too."this is what you want". No. Its gaslighting and also fuck you. If you did what i wanted you'd all be long dead so shut the fuck up and get back in your volcano line
Billionaires and investment companies buying radio, TV and print media outlets, massively consolidating them and then turning all of them into engagement bait, rage bait and propaganda factories is what ruined journalism. Radio, TV and newspaper deregulation in the 80s and 90s was a massive mistake and is the major driver of the breakdown of civil discourse over the last 30y. Which, of course, is good for billionaires and Wall St because it leaves society too dysfunctional to reign in business as usual profit extraction.
You're right about the problems, but I wouldn't characterise deregulation as a mistake, it was a calculated plan that achieved its goals which were to benefit capital.
I just think it's important to understand that capitalism is set up to operate this way and will always devolve into barbarism.
There's a pattern of belief among the rich and powerful that is basically like, "people don't actually know what they want. They think they do but what they actually want is different, even if they don't recognize it." When they say "this is what you want" they think they're giving us the thing we actually want. They believe what they're saying.
I find that to be equal parts fascinating and terrifying.
There's no money in giving them what they want. The money is in giving them what you can give them cheaply that others can't. If part of that is gaslighting....
Well there is truth in that. Look at politics. Lots of people what a better workd and know what the end result us , but they don't know how to get that. Or for a simple example. People will reply to survives saying they want dark roasted coffee, but they mostly buy medium roast i the usa.
Irony is not exactly lost when this article requires jumping through hoops to read after presenting the hook about toilet theory and saying that the author uses it to imagine what the audience is like.
As a distracted audience I'd rather go distract over something else then create an account
Fantastic framing! Not just of the internet, but the whole economic sector including big tech, various publishers, of course the ads industry and now all of the push for winning the AI platform wars.
It's a toilet economy! Fueled by the attention, tastes, inclinations and urges of people taking a shit! And now, as AI "learns" from the internet, also fed by and literally made of the writings and thoughts of people ... taking a shit.
It's also a nice litmus test for what kind of internet space somewhere online is based on where people are when they comment or post: "Is this a toilet or desk space". Depending on what you're after, you will probably want to know if you're in the right kind of place.
I don't mind looking through several pages of results, but the problem is that many results are the same web domains, which causes glazed-over eyes seeing the same results. So, I think it's the search engine's fault for this behavior, at least for me.
No shit
Constipation? Gives some of the much needed focus for reading articles on-line
Can I read the full article without yet another goddamn account?
I’m one of those people… I get overwhelmed with information and freeze. ChatGPT moves me out of the freeze stress response. I’m excellent at qa and following instruction, but awful at organization. My progress has drastically improved because I delegate my weaknesses. I do hope that I can continue using this tool to help me.
Analysis paralysis
It’s a lack of strategy, and not being able to overcome the obstacle. It stinks.
Reminder: there are other great search engines. Nobody is forcing you to use Google search. Kagi! Kagi!
Kagi is great, but I just can't miss $5 a month for it.
I'm using Qwant now and it's pretty good.
I totally understand! Speaking of my own use, it’s particularly nice because I get more relevant returns and there is the lens feature. also I use the summarization for a lot of things. Very useful