The Golden age of Internet comes to a close?

idk despite tweeting that i think it's p obviously a terrible idea. like, at what point should we have nationalized google? when it had a monopoly on search engines? after gmail? would we now have all kinds of sick shit like maps, streetview, scholar etc if we had then? obviously not. google isn't really a "utility" cause it keeps producing new crazy shit, and spending tonnes of money on r&d for stuff that doesn't pan out. from today's pov we can't imagine the future stuff their r&d might produce, how much shittier products would be if nationalized etc and i don't think those losses would outweigh the benefit from nationalization

vs Cortana, too.

But yeah, in ten years kids will probably look back in the same wonder (about SOMETHING) that kids today feel that you couldn't just type stuff into the title bar.

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, July 17, 2015 12:52 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idg cortana, afaict you ask a question and it looks up some of the words you said on Bing and shows you the search results

xp You are aware that, say, NASA was not actually a for-profit company?

I am pretty sure there would be a good online maps company in a world without google. youtube, gmail, maps and the search engine could totally be torn into separate companies without the world ending.

Mapquest would have had a multi billion dollar IPO by now.

FWIW the integration is actually one of the things I really dislike about Google - it seems much more designed for optimal advertising and data harvesting than optimal user experience. And stop trying to get me to do shit on google plus already!

xxp i am aware nasa was not actually a for-profit company (however a lot of early developments in space were privately funded, and the vast maj only became public during the cold war--although that's just a historical tidbit.) my argument (that google offers & develops lots of services and products many of which don't exist yet and shouldn't be regulated the same way as electricity) applies to google specifically. FTR i think governments should spend way more on r&d than they currently do, but i don't think nationalizing the companies that spend a lot on r&d is an obviously good thing, i would have to be convinced i guess

the alternative (ie, the one we currently have) seems p shitty to me

republicanson

google isn't really a "utility" cause it keeps producing new crazy shit

as iatee notes, this is hardly an obstacle - nationalize the utility part (ie, the search engine), they can keep their ridiculous R&D shit

(if you can't guess I'm not exactly impressed with their self-driving cars and facecomputers etc.)

there are similar arguments about the most efficient ways of doing drug research, and who benefits

BBC Radiophonic Workshop is another example - there is absolutely nothing about innovation which requires a private company.

kinda tangential but something that 1000% should be nationalised, imo as a branch of the library of congress, is the internet archive. like it should just be funded at arm's length because it is holding the internet up.

this is kind of a tangent though

the carles article identifies the nut of the problem posed by the thread, the difficulty facing us now

as iatee notes, this is hardly an obstacle - nationalize the utility part (ie, the search engine), they can keep their ridiculous R&D shit

― Οὖτις, Friday, July 17, 2015 12:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think is simple and probably not feasible. they use the money from utilities to fund the R&D shit

m@tt- i'm not a republican >_< there is no party whose platform is to nationalize google and there never will be. i even said in another thread i thought nationalizing uber would be a good idea! i just don't think you can make the case as easily for goog. also i just posted a long thoughtful thing about how to regulate markets on the internet when excludability & rivalry no longer apply, i'm not anti regulating shit in the least i just think u gotta think about it

there is absolutely nothing about innovation which requires a private company.

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, July 17, 2015 12:26 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree 100% that the state has a huge role in innovation, and that they should pursue that role way more aggressively than they currently do. but private companies also have a role

particularly in turning innovations into products ppl can use, which was exactly my reason for not nationalizing google

flop - honestly i was just joking there!

the reason they can fund their ridiculous R&D shit is because of their obscene monopoly-derived profits. It's true my proposal isn't "feasible" from Google's POV - it would destroy their company - which would be fine with me. Company has created enough billionaires that could go off and fund their own R&D-oriented startups anyway.

Google should totally be nationalized and regulated like a utility imo

xp

― Οὖτις, Friday, July 17, 2015 11:28 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk despite tweeting that i think it's p obviously a terrible idea. like, at what point should we have nationalized google? when it had a monopoly on search engines? after gmail? would we now have all kinds of sick shit like maps, streetview, scholar etc if we had then? obviously not. google isn't really a "utility" cause it keeps producing new crazy shit, and spending tonnes of money on r&d for stuff that doesn't pan out. from today's pov we can't imagine the future stuff their r&d might produce, how much shittier products would be if nationalized etc and i don't think those losses would outweigh the benefit from nationalization

― flopson, Friday, July 17, 2015 11:45 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not to be the guy who always brings up the Bell System, but that would be a nice example of a privately-held monopoly that while never (permanently) nationalized (nor ever a complete monopoly in all of its fields) was super super heavily regulated, and whose R&D arm still produced much sicker shit than google ever has: transistors, digital switching, cell phones, lasers, fiber optic transmission, and apparently evidence for the big bang (?!). they did this within the specific profit margins/dividend payouts they could get away with under the regulated system; the monopoly on long-distance underwrote both the research efforts and the provision of low-rate local service. so there are models that stop short of nationalization, but offer provisions for, as i was rambling about on the uber thread, "the public" or policy leaders to assert "this is the kind of technical infrastructure we want to have. if you can provide that, then great. if not, no dice." so the bigger question would have to be what kind of technical infrastructure do we want to have, and in what specific ways does google exceed the boundaries of this, and will that ever be a big enough issue that the political climate would allow government to step in. privacy issues seem like a potential big one. the paradox is that it would, i agree, have been more feasible for the public to assert this control a long time back, but until google was an effective monopoly it would not have seemed necessary.

it could alternately be an anti-trust "we just don't want this one company to run too many things" - like how AT&T was ultimately forced to get out of the computer business (ceding it to, it turned out, another effective monopoly in IBM. darn that military-industrial complex!). given the patriot act, etc., i'm not sure the government has much credibility on the whole "privacy" front but generally speaking i do sort of prefer the idea of there just being Email and Searching, like there was just Phone Service. some kind of hard guarantees that your correspondence is not being sold to third parties, etc. i honestly don't have any idea though - what's google's operating budget (versus R&D, marketing, whatever else they spend money on)? like how much does it cost just to provide all this email and searching infrastructure? i really have no idea whether in a nationalization scenario it would be like, the size of the post office or the size of the national park rangers or what. would be awesome if government email could balance the post office budget though. maybe they'd invent an app to figure out why the bushwick branch office is such a complete shitshow.

actually it's funny how much this thread is overlapping with the recent contents of the uber thread, re: 3-day workweek, etc.

also yeah the maps thing was happening anyway with mapquest. and the ready access to satellite imagery first appeared i think with microsoft terraserver. the funny thing is that google maps has obviously gotten much, much worse in the last year or two as the monetizable clicks (restaurants) are actually driving the UI. it's, i assume deliberately, become absurdly easy to click away from what you're actually trying to do and onto some stupid fast-casual concept taco operation, and absurdly hard to do things most people actually want. that's maybe a petty example, but the point is that the profit motive is certainly driving various inventions, but it's not clear that all of them are beneficial to the public. i wonder if google has any "we killed the electric car" type skeletons in their closet - amazing, useful inventions that would make the internet less shitty and more useful for everybody, but which cut into the bottom line. strikes me as totally plausible but it's a hypothetical i admit.

the funny thing is that google maps has obviously gotten much, much worse in the last year or two as the monetizable clicks (restaurants) are actually driving the UI.

Er, that depends a lot on what you use it for! I only need it to show me where a postcode is, how to get there from work, and how to get home from there. And sometimes how to peer around it in Google Street View* - all of those are fine. And all of them except the last could be done as well using the perfectly fine government-created Transport for London's website / app - except that when I see a postcode in Chrome, I can select it, right click, and there's a 'search for SE12AQ' option which leads me to a page, which will have a map on it. I think some folk in this thread are really undervaluing the integration of Google as regards being where you go to get information.

*curious as to whether it would have less coverage as Gubmint Street View.

Gawker, he declares, will always “report on married <...> executives of major media companies fucking around on their wives.” What about when the cheating executives are women and the spouse is a man? He doesn’t say.

In fairness, it's pretty clear from reading it that this isn't a Profound Ethical Policy that reveals Max as a misogynist - it's "what do I have to excuse today?" - it says wife because this guy has a wife.

Hah, wrong thread, sorry.

pls to confirm tht by using adblock i am helping bring down capitalism thx

― 2011’s flagrantly ceremonious rock-opera (Bananaman Begins), Friday, July 17, 2015 3:36 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

only skimmed the last few posts but just some thoughts.

adblock + ghostery do affect marketing/advertising companies. so keep doing it if you want to voice your opinion that way.

also an alternative to google is duckduckgo: https://duckduckgo.com/

it isn't perfect but it works pretty well.

i don't understand why people would want to nationalise a company that produces rigged results. obviously google has rigged search. so that page with no links/backlinks and no seo/optimization will never appear in your search, or, if it does, it'll be close to dead last. and even with all of that, if it's a popular keyword, you have to pay your way to the top. which is why search results are dominated by large companies/entities

search is one of the biggest things in tech that is prime for disruption, sorry to use garbage biz slang

Users of adblock, duckduckgo, etc. are a self-selecting population (people motivated to try to avoid advertising and savvy enough to do it in a non-stupid way). Which means advertising will be aimed more and more at reaching and motivating stupid people / nontechnical people.

Thanks a lot savvy jerks.

the thing that's always confused me about the entire modern web economy being based on advertising is...who the hell are these people clicking on ads and spending money based on them? obviously they exist, but it's hard to relate to.

advertising all content will be aimed more and more at reaching and motivating stupid people / nontechnical people.

that sure is a hardworking slash

cat-walking-across-desk clicks, all of them

all content will be slash

the thing that's always confused me about the entire modern web economy being based on advertising is...who the hell are these people clicking on ads and spending money based on them? obviously they exist, but it's hard to relate to.

― lil urbane (Jordan), Friday, July 17, 2015 10:09 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you don't have to click on it. a lot of times all it has to do is load in the browser.

you don't have to search far for an example, because this forum uses (used?) ads to pay for the servers this site is hosted on, isn't it?

i always have ad blocker on, so i don't know if they're still going the ad route.

i recall there was a fundraiser, so that might've been enough to remove ads for the next year or so on the site?

anyway, if you use an ad blocker, those sites you may like kind of suffer. then again, you can just give them some money, which i think works better.

aside from the harbingers of what's to come...

in some ways, the last few years have been kind of a golden age surely? there has never been such a breadth of information available. don't like 2.0 social media stuff? you don't have to use it (yet). the gated walls have started to appear but they certainly haven't closed in.

i mean this is an obvious point, but surely the ennui is simply a matter of having too much of a good thing. along with faster (broadband) and unrelenting (smartphones, spending more time at a computer for work etc.) access to it. roman-emperor-after-an-orgy vibes.

people still haven't quite adjusted from the scarcity mentality that has characterised anything good prior to the industrial revolution.

sure, i just mean that advertisers must see enough return on their investment that they keep paying for ad space, and that in itself boggles my mind. i have an irrational fear that one day they'll realize that no one pays attention to the garbage white noise pop-ups and sidebars, and it'll all come crashing down.

xp

They have an advertising budget to spend.

lots of unscientific ad spending happens on pretty much every medium

yeah, it's kind of hilarious how much companies spend on ads just for the hell of it.

anyway, relevant article regarding safari on mobile being able to block ads, as a refresher: http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/06/a-blow-for-mobile-advertising-the-next-version-of-safari-will-let-users-block-ads-on-iphones-and-ipads/

The potential impact of “Content Blocking Safari Extensions” even goes beyond blocked ads. Apple is explicitly allowing the blocking of cookies on a site-by-site basis. For example, you could build an extension that blocked the cookies that allow a newspaper paywall to work. The Yourtown Times allows you 10 stories free a month? It’s probably using a cookie to keep track of that count. Block that cookie and the paywall comes tumbling down — you’re a fresh visitor every time. Imagine being able to download an extension that blocked paywall cookies on the top 50 paid news sites. It wouldn’t even be particularly hard to code; unless Apple chooses to prevent it, someone will do it. News sites would be able to build workarounds — changing cookie IDs regularly, requiring user login from article 1 — but winning that sort of cat-and-mouse game is something publishers are unlikely to be good at.

lots of unscientific ad spending happens on pretty much every medium

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." - John Wanamaker.

Market leaders don't need to be able to track ROI for every dollar of ad spending, though, to think they're still justified in doing the spending.

Cf. Tracy Flick in "Election": "Coca-Cola is by far the world's number one soft drink and they spend more money than anybody on advertising. I guess that's how come they stay number one."

The idea is that if you see the brand "Coke" frequently enough, there's a greater chance that when you would otherwise think "I want a soda" you instead think "I want a Coke." So they want it blinking at you from every purchasable surface, as often as possible. You don't need to click on an ad and then make a conscious purchasing decision based on your affection for (or agreement with) those ads.

^^^

advertising is such a shell-game it's a sad miracle so much of our economy is funded by it

like THAT'S the mysterious blackhole our capitalistic overlords are happiest about throwing money into

labor, r&d, long-term investments eh not so much

you don't have to search far for an example, because this forum uses (used?) ads to pay for the servers this site is hosted on, isn't it?

for un-logged-in users only iirc, although maybe the funding was an issue as to whether ads would have to be shown to all?

Personally, I'd endure the possibility of seeing an ad if that were the price to pay for ilx. Probably better than assuming it's all magical and free and there's no friction or gravity at work in the world.

Maybe I'd draw the line at "jjusten (brought to you by Electro-Harmonix)"

What if we have to make sponsored posts sometimes. "sorry, had to take a break to refresh with a glass of water and some vyvanse (ask your doctor!) anyway that gawker, tsk tsk"

the golden of the internet has yet to come

adblock isn't about capitalism. it's about security. allowing ads on your browser is putting your computer at severe and immediate risk. effectively monetizing content is the least of our concerns right now.

It think it's fairly clearly about convenience? These ads distract me - this product will remove them.

my computer is fuckin aged, it can't take the hit of loading unnecessary bullshit

at this point adblock has moved to a security issue because of the constant bugs where someone can insert malicious content onto a page with an ad, and then inject malware.

for me the more pressing matter is whether carles is right that ultra-optimized, contentless posts in volume for a general audience will always beat quality posts on a particular subject. like if you are an investor in a middling sized media company, which would you want to see more of? it's a rephrasing of a very old question, obvs - these tensions have always existed - but has the clear runaway success of the content farm model tilted the answer decisively (for the present moment at least?) i hear stories about websites where writers are told to produce 4 articles every... hour

That doesn't surprise me. I went over to the dark side but sometimes we would joke about web stories among ourselves like how dumb is this I bet it will do 20k hits in an hour... It was almost predictable like the worse it was the better it would do