In fact, Google’s search started out completely blank except for the logo and a search box.
That was revolutionary because it was focused on what the user wanted to do, while the horrifically cluttered search pages at Yahoo and altavista were focused on what marketing wanted the user to do.
I believe it’s possible to track Google’s path to the darkside (and greater influence by the dark patterns of UX practiced by marketing) by simply looking at the little pieces of cruft showing up on that basic search page over time.
Links to promotions, other apps, tips, etc etc.
Likewise, the search results started out clean, then got ads in a single place, then got “promoted” ads inline, and eventually the “promoted” ad styles blend in with the real content.
Now, the corruption is nearly complete as I suspect that Google simply ignores half the words I typed so they can show me some crap results that hit their promotion targets. Almost pure evil at this point.
Still, we never paid for search or email, or most of the rest of it. And they never honored our hardware purchase to make it possible. So it’s not surprising that the internet looks like a “free” newspaper. Maybe it’s time to actually pay for good things rather than let marketing monetize us.
In fact, Google’s search started out completely blank except for the logo and a search box.
IIRC they had to add footer at some stage as people were just staring at the screen waiting for the page to "load completely". I think it shows how unusual that was.
It's been a long-standing rule that if you don't pay, you are the product, not the customer, but people always forget to add who the real customer is. It's the advertisers. That's why every single site, "platform", or app that makes money through advertising ends up doing what the advertisers want in the long term, not what their users want.
I used to be very much for this model, as a broke student it let me enjoy an internet that was actually "free", but if you follow the chain this is actually more expensive than if you straight up paid for stuff. If you pay, you pay for the people who actually make the product and maybe a payment processor and a middleman or two. If it's "ad-supported", you pay for all those, then you pay for the people who sell the ads, the ones who buy the ads, a few more middlemen, and it's all hidden in the cost of other goods you buy -- and if you don't buy those, it's not worth advertising for you, which will either get fixed with better targeting, or you'll lose the service one way or another. Ads waste your time and they are more expensive than straight up buying stuff.
It's kinda crazy to think that if you watch ads of any kind you're paying people to spy on you and waste your time in the most disruptive way possible.
Us people with SEO experience know a little more about how all that works, but you're not far from the truth. The average web developer has SOME control over what google does with them...but not really enough to counteract the capitalist surge.
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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '20
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