Google executives acknowledged this month they need to do a better job surfacing user-generated content after the recent Reddit blackouts.
Google executives acknowledged this month they need to do a better job surfacing user-generated content after the recent Reddit blackouts.
I’m genuinely curious, what’s the alternative? Google tries to rank the “best” results, so naturally people try to game that system. How do you design a search engine in such a way that you get the better results without manipulation?
Try Kagi
I wasn’t asking for alternatives to Google, I was asking for alternatives to the solution Google offers. Google is the largest provider, so all the SEO is focussed on them - if an alternative became the biggest provider, people would target them instead.
So if Google is to blame for their solution, what is the alternative solution?
I think the solution here would have something to do with micro-transactions. For whatever reason, whether it being technical or social or else, it has never worked. But in an alternative internet where you can pay content creatores gradually as you traverse the net, gatekeeprs such as google would be less important, since they are not the only ones who can pay.
Projects such as search.marginalia.nu/ are also an excellent place to look, which yield limited but quality results.
You’re basically describing the concept behind web3, but that’s a dirty word now due to greed from capitalists and environmental concerns from… environmentalists. (The environmental concerns being reasonable concerns, but they’re often overstated / people think it’s all as bad as Bitcoin.) Web3 could’ve meant seizing the means of entertainment production by the people producing the content. Maybe it still can, but it doesn’t look like it.
I don’t use the feature myself, but Brave Browser has something like this. You can opt in to this token system and you earn tokens as you view their non targeted ads, which can then be “spent” to give content creators whatever couple pennies (I assume) those tokens equate to.
It’s more like “a free lunch every few months” than just pennies. I think I’ve earned like $40 over a year or two. Not going to make your rich by any means, but a decent incentive.
I guess with inflation that’s more like a free lunch every year lol