Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
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Continue reading "Pluralistic: Google's enshittification memos (03 Oct 2023)"
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It’s hard to convey just how revolutionary Google Search was when it debuted in 1998. It blew rivals — from AskJeeves and Altavista to Yahoo — out of the water. It was so good, it was almost spooky, surfacing the best of the web with just a few clicks.
Today, Google owns the search market, controlling more than 90 percent of searches. Its worth hovers in the trillion-dollar range, and it employs some 180,000 people in offices all over the world. Almost every online journey we take starts with a Google search.
And here’s the thing: Google Search suuuuucks.
Continue reading "Pluralistic: Autoenshittification (24 July 2023)"
Continue reading "Pluralistic: Google makes millions on paid abortion disinformation (15 June 2023)"
The thing is, there really is an important area of AI research for Google, namely, “How do we keep AI nonsense out of search results?”
Google’s search quality has been in steady decline for years. I blame the company’s own success. When you’ve got more than 90 percent of the market, you’re not gonna grow by attracting more customers — your growth can only come from getting a larger slice of the pie, at the expense of your customers, business users and advertisers.
Google’s product managers need that growth. For one thing, the company spends $45 billion every year to bribe companies like LG, Samsung, Motorola, LG and Apple to be their search default. That is to say, they’re spending enough to buy an entire Twitter, every single year, just to stay in the same place.
Continue reading "Pluralistic: We should ban TikTok('s surveillance) (30 Mar 2023)"