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The Internet Is About to Get Much Worse (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology

80 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/5400607

This is a classic case of tragedy of the commons, where a common resource is harmed by the profit interests of individuals. The traditional example of this is a public field that cattle can graze upon. Without any limits, individual cattle owners have an incentive to overgraze the land, destroying its value to everybody.

We have commons on the internet, too. Despite all of its toxic corners, it is still full of vibrant portions that serve the public good — places like Wikipedia and Reddit forums, where volunteers often share knowledge in good faith and work hard to keep bad actors at bay.

But these commons are now being overgrazed by rapacious tech companies that seek to feed all of the human wisdom, expertise, humor, anecdotes and advice they find in these places into their for-profit A.I. systems.

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[–] FireTower 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Actual user generated content is absolutely where it's at.

I trust a 8 year old forum post or a product review on YouTube by someone with 1,000 subscribers much more than any of the Amazon affiliate link riddled listicles that dominate search results.

[–] MargotRobbie 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly, which is why I keep repeating here, the Google/Facebook advertising model of "personalized content algorithm" was and is a lie that they've been selling for decades. There really is nothing more effective to promote something than genuine word of mouth, and that is not something that can be automated by an unfeeling machine.

So, in that sense, actual human content are a dwindling resource on the Internet right now, and that's where Lemmy comes in. If we want Lemmy to grow, you should actively contribute your own expertise here(everybody is good at something) instead of arguing pointlessly, so people can think of Lemmy as a place where people help people.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

“People who help people are the Lemmiest people in the world!”

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm loving how kagi banishes listicles to a single, small, condensed section of the search results