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The real villain here is Google. Google found one of the very best business models of all time, skimming all the surplus profit off of the entire free open internet. This is the natural end state of that process. https://t.co/VVyjq7IlVB
This could have been averted if Google was less avaricious. Instead of trying to eg. eat Yelp alive with by giving Google reviews an unfair advantage in search, they could have partnered with them and cut them in on the revenue.
The fact revenue sites now optimize to trick you into reading for as long as possible before giving you the recipe is directly due to this phenomenon…more time on site both ranks them higher on Google, and also lets them show more ads, which they need to compete for top spot.
If Google worked closely with their partners, the sites and people who provide the open content that makes one of the most profitable businesses in the world work…then people like SEO-heist-man would be out of luck. Bc Google would know they were being ripped off.
Look how it works on YouTube. Extensive controls mean you can’t just copy someone else’s videos and rank. If you tried to GPT-steal their YT videos they’d rightly strike you. But Google hasn’t bothered to build that for the open web because it’s just a commons to plunder to them.
@eshear Wait, can you explain this position to me? I must be dumb. Every day I use Google literally 1000s of times. I use it for email, maps, file sharing, doc editing, search, history, photo storage, browser... I've always been basically happy. What am I missing?
@eshear I guess I'm just confused about what it's doing wrong, specifically, that is polluting the commons. In my life, Google search has been one of the most miraculous things I've ever seen. Like railroads or metered energy. Abundant, endlessly useful, cheap. Is search easy?
@eshear Like, I trust you that there's another story here, I didn't use the internet much before Google... But if there is, what is it? How can I understand, because to me, when Google was installed on my phone, the whole world opened up.
@__drewface @eshear Google has normalized having the value of your content farmed by unscrupulous middle men who don’t care about having even the most middle transactional relationship with you Of course this was possible before Google but it wasn’t technologically and culturally institutionalized
@mbateman @eshear So is the falsifiable claim that people before Google were more likely to capture the value of their web content, or that they captured a larger %, or is it more of an aesthetic critique that things just feel colder and more impersonal now?
@__drewface @eshear The falsifiable claim is more dynamic than before-and-after: that Google, growing and evolving along with the internet itself, made certain problems worse, where other solutions are/were available, as evidenced by the existence of those solutions on other platforms
@mbateman @eshear I think i misread both Emmett's perspective (and your defense) as calling Google literally villainous and evil, and harkening back to a better "before times" (which no one would explain using historical example) In fact, you were not. https://t.co/RB15FkD7m4
@eshear For instance, by protecting websites that use their platform better, like how YouTube protects its creators? That makes sense. I thought you were saying something more extreme about Google destroying what was once great. https://t.co/pIUZ0AmWUX
@mbateman @eshear I think I can see the second being true. Re 2: Feels a bit like saying the NYC subway is amazing and terrible. Amazing product, horrible aesthetics and opportunity costs. So much value left on the table. Regulatory capture.
@__drewface Search isn’t easy. Google has built something amazing and powerful. Bc of data and usage scale, it’s hard for anyone to ever catch up. That means they are stewards of a natural monopoly, as Microsoft was with Windows for a time or Apple w iOS. I am criticizing their stewardship.
@eshear For instance, by protecting websites that use their platform better, like how YouTube protects its creators? That makes sense. I thought you were saying something more extreme about Google destroying what was once great. https://t.co/pIUZ0AmWUX
If Google worked closely with their partners, the sites and people who provide the open content that makes one of the most profitable businesses in the world work…then people like SEO-heist-man would be out of luck. Bc Google would know they were being ripped off.
@__drewface Exactly. What if Google saw themselves as stewards of the open web, and took responsibility for its health? They’ve done some of that — Chrome was a great example. It’s not a zero. But I wish they did more.