Surprising no one, new research says AI Overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
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Technically it was invented by Xerox then developed for the military. The 1990s version of the internet was more akin to what you described but I wouldn't say it was designed with that in mind.
I wouldn’t say it was designed with that in mind
In a sense it very much was. Al Gore as a young congressperson was shown the military version (Arpanet) and then pushed a series of bills that expanded this to the civilian world and created what became knows as the Internet. His explicit goal was to create an "Information Superhighway" that would allow for the free exchange of - wait for it - information. This phrase (popularized by Gore but probably not originated by him) was so well-known in the '90s that it became a standard joke format: "{fill in the blank} Superhighway" was sure to get a laugh.
Incidentally, during the 2000 presidential election cycle, Gore gave an interview where he said he "took the initiative in creating the Internet", which was a perfectly true and reasonable statement for him to make. In fact, all he was doing was emphasizing an achievement that he was already well-known for. Months later, Bush advisor Karl Rove found this quote and mangled it into the "Al Gore claims he invented the Internet!" bullshit that so many people still think was real.
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As a 50-something, I can see the case for putting the “golden age” of the internet between the birth of Wikipedia in 2001 and Facebook in 2006.
Pre-Facebook as the endpoint, sure. But mid- to late-90s was pretty cool, too.
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I’ve googled several things recently, the AI shit really sucks! It’s fine if you’re looking for something basic, like translations of words and what not. But if it’s something more specific it’ll easily bullshit you and claim it’s correct.
that's copium.
I see that google increase number of search ads, likely because people just stop scrolling and clicking entirely -
I’ve googled several things recently, the AI shit really sucks! It’s fine if you’re looking for something basic, like translations of words and what not. But if it’s something more specific it’ll easily bullshit you and claim it’s correct.
Yeah not using Google but duck.ai gave me some claim about a product I was looking up that had some categories. I asked how many of category x and it said 11 but the product only had 11 in total. Oh yeah oops I have actually no idea how many of category x there is out of 11. Cool, people who trust it would have just wasted money.
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It'll be bing or something. The internet is too big nowadays for a small group to keep up. There's just too much new information streaming in.
Ecosia and Qwant are working on a European search index.
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I'm reading comments on arstechnica and seeing people mad at... what exactly?
The reason I go to web search is to answer my questions. Now it's given to me at once, without need to go anywhere.
Is it sometimes hallucinating? Of course it is, but have you really 100% trusted information on the Internet before anyways? I haven't.You say that ads driven websites are going to stop receiving money. But have you really liked ads driven websites? The same ones whose main incentive is to keep you on the website as long as possible or, in fact, wasting as much your time as possible to sell it to ad companies? The ones that were really worth visiting already changed their business model.
At google scraping the internet, putting it in a blender then force-feeding us that goop while selling our eyeballs and data.
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I've switched to startpage and have no complaints. Not that Google has deployed much of its latest crap in Europe, but it's been shit for quite some time anyway.
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Kagi is worth it though. Been paying for 3-months and the ability to search, get info, click through quickly is a breath of fresh air. It's what Google USED to be. Plus it downranks pages with excessive trackers, you can prefer or omit websites from results based on personal preference, and it'll even alert you when websites have paywalled answers. The Kagi free trial is all I needed to be convinced.
Ended up subscribing. Holy shit this is a gamechanger!
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I forsee a future where kagi subscriptions are bought by libraries and that's basically the only place to do internet searching for free.
Right back to the old days of having to go to the library to use the internet, but it will be because corpos destroyed all usable info and require a 200 dollar per month th subscription to use their shitty Hitler ai.
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Ended up subscribing. Holy shit this is a gamechanger!
Crazy how good it is, right?
Google enshittified so gradually, we never even noticed.
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What the shit??? Well that sucks.
https://www.archivebuttons.com/ is the way
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It’s just nostalgia applied to the internet. Some people call it Eternal September. Everyone prefers what the internet was when they first discovered it and hate what it’s become since then. I remember the internet from 1996 most fondly. Many prefer it from the 80s or earlier 90s. This is no different from other media: music, TV, movies.
Of course this is separate from the real issue which is the consolidation and silo-ification of the modern web.
Yeah, the best is never going to be “now”, which is always drown in uncertainty and chaos. When you look back, everything looks safe and deterministic.
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Marginalia.nu does too with similar additonal filters like Tildeverse and Forums.
Marginalia should be one of the most important things to preserve, in a similar importance to Wikipedia.
