this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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I don’t think the algorithm is the problem. The problem is that sites started to capitalize on your attention. Everybody wants your sweet little attention so they can earn money from it. Internet also moved into walled gardens of money making machines (like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok).
It doesn’t matter which algorithm is used. Somebody will crack it and abuse it for their own good.
There’s no reversing this.
If the algorithm gives a bigger shit about giving the answer people are actually looking for, and doesn't emphasize length, formatting, and other bullshit... And people crack the algorithm by giving exactly that answer I'm looking for, I'd be ok with that.
But it all starts with the algorithm
That’s easily abused. Search engines before Google were pure keyword search, but those were quickly abused. People just made websites with all types of keywords just to get on top of search results. Google’s PageRank fixed this - temporarily. People were quick to abuse it too.
It doesn’t matter what you try to do. Somebody will figure out how to abuse it.
But to do that, the algorithm has to know the right answer in the first place. Meaning a human has to tell it what's right and what's wrong.
Have you seen Google's generative AI tests? They're trying to do exactly that and it's mostly useless.
This is exactly right but assumes the nature of the internet must remain the same. The problem is the content and people wanting your sweet little attention. The internet described in the article - the blogosphere and Usenet and the rest, was an internet created by people for people and existed for its own sake. What google has access to now is 3 billion people all trying to scam the others for money. Its a fundamentally different user base and there's no way a better algorithm can find content that isn't there