Mastodawn

black_sparkling_heart

In Yesterday's IO Keynote Google declared war on the remnants of the Web.

While they packaged it as a lot of "AI" talk what their whole approach of decontextualizing information, of taking away links to sources and instead producing some LLM generated response means is that they want to establish a new abstraction layer on the web. Where Zuckerberg with his Metaverse failed Google is starting the next attack: Your website, your work no longer matters.

Well it matters as (unpaid) raw material for their synthetic text extruders but not as cultural artifact you can share with others.

This is a literal revolution but one against the participatory web, against us: The goal is to take away the web and guide people into Google's abstraction on top of it. An abstraction they control and moderate. It's about monopolizing access to information.

If you care about the web, about people's ability to participate in it as more than mere passive consumers, this needs to be taken seriously. De-Googlifying your mental apparatus becomes more urgent today. Find other search engines, don't use their browser. Or wake up in a slopified AOL kind of environment.

@tante We saw this coming with how much they break the social contract of the World Wide Web. Those who have a say on this kind of thinking need to wake up.

Violet Madder 1d ago

Saw it coming when they decided not being evil wasn't a priority anymore.

@tante is there an alternative to google scholar out there? unsure if they will do anything to that imminently but that's where I find journal articles

endolexi 1d ago

@bluebells https://paperpile.com/g/academic-search-engines/ @tante

The best academic search engines [Update 2025] - Paperpile

Your research is stuck, and you need to find new sources. Take a look at our compilation of free academic search engines: ✓ Google Scholar ✓ BASE ✓ CORE ✓ Science.gov

Paperpile

@endolexi thanks (your link in your post has tante's url connected to it but editing it off, I was able to use the link)

endolexi 1d ago

@bluebells sorry, corrected it anyway! ^^ Hope you find what you're looking for!

@endolexi @bluebells @tante https://www.sci-hub.pub/

Sci-Hub.Pub - Latest Sci-Hub Available Websites and Alternatives.

Sci-Hub.pub provides the latest Sci-Hub available websites and alternatives.

R0gu3_S4t3ll1t3 📡🌟1d ago

@endolexi @bluebells @tante thanks for the article

NO FUTURE 1d ago

@bluebells @tante i use arxiv search, but that only indexes the papers on that specific site.

@bluebells @tante
Check out https://openalex.org/ too. The interface is a bit clunky but it's the major open source of scholarly data.
(I used to recommend it unequivocally, but unfortunately their CEO and dev are all in on vibe coding so I have less confidence in their data. Still at least as good as the alternatives, though)

OpenAlex

Tuomo Valkonen 1d ago

@peter_mcmahan @bluebells @tante I just checked what OpenAlex knows about me, and apparently I work for the Ministry of National Defense of the People's Republic of China.

I didn't know that. Although, the constant bureaucratic control and surveillance that I'm subject to in #Ecuador feels like the popular conception of China.

@tuomov @bluebells @tante
Ha. Yeah author disambiguation on openalex still has some issues. It's actually one of the things that feels like it has gotten worse as the openalex team has relied more and more on slopcoding

pirategoddess 🏳️‍🌈22m ago

@peter_mcmahan That's really sad. I've been loosely following OpenAlex since it started after Microsoft Academic shut down, sucks to hear they've gone down that path.

@tuomov @bluebells @tante

Albert Cardona 1d ago

@bluebells @tante

For a Google Scholar replacement see @OpenAlex at:
https://openalex.org

… and also Semantic Scholar
https://www.semanticscholar.org

OpenAlex

@tante this is all stock driven. if investors don't bite, these plans will just disappear.

@lritter @tante The sad part is that the investors will bite, because if it works, it will mean number go up, big time.

JackPearse 1d ago

@[email protected] @[email protected] Investors shit on the biggest stack. Always.

And as Kim Stanley Robinson teaches us in "New York *2140*", we are those ones in power. And willingly don't use it.

The easiest way to fuck investors is to simply stop consuming the invested good. But everyone. And for at least 4 weeks. If Corporations understand that customers withdraw from their service for more than Months - they panic. Because the have running costs.

But we silly monks simply don't utilize our power.

@jackpearse @tante our company doesn't have the privilege to suspend our google dependencies.

JackPearse 1d ago

@lritter @tante

See, and that‘s the reason they have power. I did actually work since 3 years every single day on getting rid of giogle and Microsoft. First thing is to change the default dev language etc.

But at the end of the day github is Microsoft. These Corporations are lile Cancer. Once they affect you it’s really tough to get rid of them.

Cutting-Edge Pizza Analytics 1d ago

@jackpearse @lritter @tante organize then. Unions and revolutionary organizations. This takes power. "Just stop using thing" has never worked and never will.

JackPearse 1d ago

A consumption strike would change the world. But we just don't do it. Instead of pointing to investors and everyone else, we should point to ourselves. We should ask ourselves why we still use their services so that they make money.

Just to be clear here: WE are paying them.

@lritter @tante I'm afraid the possible upside for the investors is gigantic.
Right now, Google is sort of a gateway to get to information somewhere else on the internet, but often you still have to go there. With this, Google is (trying to be) the gateway to information, period.
Without sources, you have to rely on what Google tells you. They control what's the "truth" for many people. Add the possibility to tinker with said output.

Frutiger 1d ago

@tante Yea I think their dream is to have a device with only one interactable IA and nothing more, like if that were the lamp genie who searchs and make everything that the user wants when prompted. I think they are aiming in that direction. Not having an GUI or apps, only IA that will make everything.

Misja van Laatum 1d ago

@FrutigerAero00 @tante I think so too. And that also means they control access to everything you can do and know online. And that's frightening.

Frutiger 1d ago

@misjavanlaatum @tante Exactly. But if we still can access the web the same way we are doing right now, there will be hope.
What I fear most are the laws that could be implemented that will (and are) limiting how we interact with the internet. The moment the freedom to use internet is prosecuted (which is happening) we are gonna be fucked haha

@FrutigerAero00

So, for example, instead of going to a web page and ordering your take-out, your agentic AI will (for a fee) put in your order for what you want on your behalf. Then it will pass money (for a fee) from your account to the restaurant. Or put a book on hold at your library (for a fee) or schedule your furnace maintenance (for a fee) etc.

Frutiger 1d ago

@killick exactly thisssss 👆

@FrutigerAero00, that sounds like a nightmare. I'm sure the "AI" would take us to the furnace company that paid them the most, too.

Frutiger 1d ago

@killick Lmao dont even doubt it for a second. Yes, evertything would be a nightmare. What worries me most about that scenario is how to search info that isn't curated by the ia. Like, they can choose to not show you certain info. Its like X with their algortihms but x100 worse.

@killick @FrutigerAero00 How quaint of you to imagine that the agentic AI will put an order "for what you want".
It will put an order for what maximizes the revenue of its masters.

Frutiger 1d ago

@dl2jml @killick 😂 😂 😂 😂 Well of course, IA will sell you as "the best option totally not promoted and 100% based on your preferences" wink wink.

Like, all lies imaginable if an IA Os is created they will happen.

CohenTheBlue 1d ago

@tante Google blog article, https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/sundar-pichai-io-2026/#agents

"Search in the agentic era"

I/O 2026: Welcome to the agentic Gemini era

The latest from Google I/O: See how we’re helping you get more done with Gemini.

Google

What the fuck is even going on with their branding in that header image? I swear, branding has gotten significantly worse in the last 2 years. It was boring before, but now it is just all over the place.

@theeclecticdyslexic @cohentheblue @tante it's a hallucinated version of their logo 🙂

Babys in a thundercloud 🏳‍⚧️ 1d ago

@tante https://geminiquickst.art

Gemini Quickstart!

A Quick Start Guide For New Gemini Users

@oceane I feel like Gemini (as in the protocol) has potential but right now it feels like it's just a blogging system and I can't tell if it wants to be more than that.

Babys in a thundercloud 🏳‍⚧️ 1d ago

@nini Your comment could apply to Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, and to some parts of Instagram. Given Google’s vested interests in Facebook, I’m not sure I get your comment – what do you think Gemini should be?

Babys in a thundercloud 🏳‍⚧️ 1d ago

@nini I’m not saying it’s a bad reply I just don’t get what you mean here, I think I’m missing out on some part of the potential of Gemini and I think your reply could be valuable for my research as well!

@oceane What I say could apply to those things but they're not trying to be a protocol, they're sites. Gemini seems to have the potential for a small web sort of thing but it could be more than just blogs as the internet even in the 90s wasn't just blogs but it was forums, BBSes, repositories for data and whatever else it could be if someone could make it.

Might be me not being sure what Gemini is as well, it's a touch vague in those terms and seems good with being for blogs only which is fine if that's all it needs to be.

Richardus 1d ago

@tante switch to a different search enginr. Did thst long ago when google search rrsults started to be crap already.

@1024Bytes I already did quite a while ago. Google's chokehold on that space is massive though

Ray McCarthy 1d ago

@1024Bytes @tante
I tried DuckDuckGo (Really Bing and does now have a noAI mode) for a while but now use Qwant.

@1024Bytes Changing to a different search engine does not fix our collective issue. At best it delays it for you individually.

This is something Google started a couple years ago even before the AI summary crap and de-contextualising. Specialised websites all over the web have simply vanished* as the people maintaining them did not see any use in that when the sites became effectively invisible.
Unfortunately other search engines do the same.

*my example: https://mastodon.online/@Pepijn/111991376150442267

@1024Bytes @tante

I wish someone would make a good search engine! Something like what Google used to be in the old days. How hard could it be?

Richardus 1d ago

@Quasit @tante Have you tried DuckDuckGo ? i turn btw the AI suggestions off. But it's much cleaner and feels more like thge old days compared to google now.

@1024Bytes @tante

I have. And I use it fairly often. But of course it's based on Bing, so there's an evil billionaire tech bro behind that, too.

Seriously, why can't some ordinary humans make a good search engine that isn't owned by Big Tech? That's how Google started out, as I recall.

Meneer de Bruin 🚂🍉🔻1d ago

@tante Feed it! Feed it slop until it starts hallucinating full time.

Paul 夏央 Kishimoto 1d ago

@tante I remember the slogan ”organize the world's information and make it accessible,” and it still appears on their website. To us non-galaxy-brained folks, the AI push fails on both counts: it DISorganizes info into slop and makes it INaccessible to anyone not able or willing to pay.

No doubt they'd spin it as consistent, but I think of someone being forced to drink from a firehose and being told they ‘have access to the world's water’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgPgsvxxxKE

UHF - Drink From The Firehose

YouTube

Jeff Atwood 1d ago

@tante ok so we're at war with ... (checks notes) Google? Not Meta? Not Microsoft? Not Amazon? Not Oracle? Not Palantir? Not Apple? Not Tesla? Not X?

Jeff Atwood 1d ago

@tante I think we're gonna need a bigger boat

neutronstar 1d ago

@codinghorror @tante
Do you have something that is Ark sized maybe..?

Also, I use Mojeek :)

@codinghorror why not all of them? ;)

This is not a "just google is bad" kind of thing. It's just that the one company that structures most people's access to the web decided to change the contract unilaterally. I think that that specific thing needs highlighting while also burning Meta and X and all them to the ground. We can contain multitudes (of ways of defending access to information, expression and connection)

Jeff Atwood 1d ago

@tante why not all of us? aren't humans the original mistake?

@codinghorror corporations aren't humanity jeff
@tante

goedelchen 1d ago

@jackeric @codinghorror @tante Corporations don't act. It's always humans within or behind them.

@goedelchen @codinghorror @tante Better to act against the corporation itself if at all possible, rather than the people leading them - we can't all be Luigi

Jeff Atwood 1d ago

@jackeric @goedelchen @tante only the very best of us can be Luigi.

Jeff Atwood 1d ago

@tante I feel like no one actually wants to take full responsibility here. It's always something else, someone else that's the problem, isn't it? Never us. It's them. They're the problem... right?

Jeff Atwood 1d ago

@tante I think we can do significantly better than this. But what do I know. Take my advice and do as you please.

@codinghorror Look, I'd love to take your advice into consideration, I just don't fully get what you are going for