EatonJul 16, 2023

The failure of the Internet to deliver its promise is particularly noticeable when you hunt for repair manuals for a product from the 90s. Used to be, the information would either be there or not there, finable or unfindable.

Now, there are hundreds of algorithmically generated sites claiming to have it just because it appeared in their search logs, generating potemkin village content traps with endless paging, broken-thumbnail named-like-the-file-you-want but actually-just-ebay-photos bullshit

Show threadbioluminescentlyJul 16, 2023
@eaton This is also why it's such a problem that independent websites are now falling so far down search engine rankings. When I was younger, if you had a problem with A Thing from a larger category of Things, you'd go to a website run by some Thing Enthusiast or group of them, and look your Thing up in the site's index or inbuilt search box. If it wasn't there, you'd post on the site's forum and another Thing Owner might help. But now... good luck even finding out that indie site exists.
Show threadKeen Grasp
@bioluminescently @eaton So much this. I hate feeling like the "old man yells at cloud" meme is now about me, but like: people really ought to be yelling, and that is not a natural cloud, it is the smoke from a bunch of corporate scumbags setting everything good in the world on fire
Jul 17, 2023 at 5:00pmWeb
Show threadbioluminescentlyJul 17, 2023
@keengrasp @eaton That is a really apt way of putting it: the very fact we do have all this tech means the pace of change is faster and more far-reaching than what people had to deal with even a generation ago, and we have to reconfigure our assumptions about caveating and resisting advances (or "advances") in that light.
Show threadKeen GraspJul 17, 2023
@bioluminescently @eaton I sometimes feel like half my toots are evangelism for Cory Doctorow, but his analysis of the Luddites is so spot on and so helpful for understanding today’s tech hellscape.
Show threadbioluminescentlyJul 18, 2023
@keengrasp @eaton He is honestly spot on an amazing amount of the time.