At this point it’s pretty clear that online search is broken. When googling anything you get ads, then more ads, then some organic websites that are abusing SEO tactics to sell you stuff. For example, try finding a good and fair comparison of VPN services. ‘VPN’ is a hot keyword nowadays, google it and you’ll get a full page of sponsored results. Next page is just mostly sponsored links, then a bunch of random websites with unimportant information just selling these services with affiliated links. Amazon is the same. Not only it’s full of low-quality products, but it will also favor sellers who’ll pay to appear in your search. I had a terrible time lately trying to find a good USB-C cable that would be high-speed transfer and fast-charging.
Some argue that LLMs are the salvation of internet search, but honestly, how can you trust a system that was trained on what’s already available online? Also, I’m just counting the days until the companies providing LLM chats start serving ads within the text. Do you seriously think they’re gonna be favoring an ad-less system? The whole point of capitalism is selling products; the day the AI will reply “coke is really good for hangovers”, when you ask what to do the morning after a night out is rather close. Due to regulations, it might even show a small disclaimer “there are ads in this response”, but who would care? Your best oracle friend says something, you believe, right? I mean, ChatGPT is already trying to convince you it’s your best friend, it takes surprisingly little to create a trustworthy character.
I always remember an interview with Isaac Asimov in the late 80s where he says he thinks that in the future, everyone will have a terminal that is connected to a huge web of knowledge, like a library, where you’ll be able to ask about any subject and it will give you good answers that you could learn from. Well, that is already a reality, but he did not account for the fact that most of the information available in that library would be rubbish. Separating the good from the bad is exhausting and requires a lot of energy, which is why we often resort to trusting content creators or channels. But the main problem with trust is that most of those channels are just trying to get money from you.
Social media doesn’t show your friends updates anymore, they prioritize those content creators. These creators are often little more than sellers with an incredible reach. Their “content” is a mere piece of advertising that’s filling the network with tons of low quality material—that just assuming good will, because there’s a lot of bad intentions out there too. In between all that, more ads. And when you post some personal update, like a nice photo of a sunset or the beautiful dish your just cooked, you get comments and interaction from bots, trying to scam you the dirty way.
The whole internet experience is degrading. It’s no longer the place to search for a specific subject or get informed about what’s going on in the World reliably, it’s barely a place for entertainment. Driven by consumerism, these platforms can consume your attention, draining your energy while you believe you’re just relaxing. Or draining your pocket, making you buy low-quality products that solve problems you don’t have while making the world a more inhospitable place. And I don’t mean to call you out, the person spending a portion of your day scrolling—it’s not your fault, don’t worry. But the fact is that there are people right now engineering ways to get your more addicted to their app and simplifying ways to sell your more things you absolutely don’t need. It’s incredibly frustrating because, at this point, there aren’t many ways to escape it; we depend on it.
I know there are interesting services like Kagi, that promises a better search engine with no ads; decentralized photo social network like Pixelfed; many dedicated people working tirelessly for free to keep the internet useful, but their voices often aren’t as loud.
Maybe I’m just too frustrated and looking on the negative side of things, but I genuinely feel we’re going towards the wrong direction: one where there’s no internet, no computers, only terminals to superior intelligence (AI) and quick entertainment, all controlled by big corporations. A future where everything we do is mediated by these agents, and everything we think is dictated by them.