What Happened to My Search Engine?

However, I don’t think it’s right to say that Google search completely sucks . A lot of things we search for now, we take for granted. For example, searching for the nearest cafe that is open right now, getting directions to an unfamiliar place. As the Yellow Pages, Google is great. I often jump off Duck Duck Go if I want to find more information a... See more

Once upon a time, the Internet was predicated on user-generated content. The hope was that ordinary people would take advantage of the Web’s low barrier for publishing to post great things, motivated simply by the joy of open communication. But then ad sales came into play.

That business model is still what most of the Internet relies on today. Rev... See more

Most people don’t need a history lesson to know that Google has changed; they feel it. Try searching for a product on your smartphone and you’ll see that what was once a small teal bar featuring one “sponsored link” is now a hard-to-decipher, multi-scroll slog, filled with paid-product carousels; multiple paid-link ads; the dreaded, algorithmically... See more

Navigating the modern internet feels like trudging through a hostile wasteland. The search and social algorithms, ostensibly designed to give us what we want, keep us trapped in the shallows, gorging on an endless supply of junk media that never quite satiates

This isn’t true (yet), but it reflects some general sense that the authentic web is gone. The SEO marketers gaming their way to the top of every Google search result might as well be robots. Everything is commercialized. Someone’s always trying to sell you something. Whether they’re a bot or human, they are decidedly fake.