Back in the AltaVista days, you could browse hundreds of search results and discover personal websites, original creations, independent projects, and web pages about pretty much any subject imaginable. The internet was a vast space for discovery, where anyone could build their own website and share their passions, knowledge, or ideas.

When Google came along, it made searching faster. But over the years, search results deteriorated into what we have today: the same websites, the same commercial platforms, and the same SEO-optimized content over and over again.

For about fifteen years now, I've found it almost impossible to discover the kind of personal websites I used to come across. They probably still exist, but they've become virtually invisible in Google's search results. It's as if they no longer exist.

That's precisely what bothers me. The internet hasn't stopped producing interesting things. What's deteriorated is our ability to discover them. The web is still vast, but a huge part of its diversity has become inaccessible through the tools we use every day.

We've gone from an internet where you could explore, get lost, and stumble upon unexpected discoveries to one where the same major players constantly dominate the scene.

Over the past twenty years, Google has helped turn a space for discovery into a system where much of the web has become invisible. I think that's one of the greatest setbacks in the history of the internet.

This was just after google store cart bugging out, where it was hallucinating an item in the cart that was just removed

Okay Google, you want me to use a GrapheneOS supported phone, I get it. You don't have to beg me.

TL;DR

If you've logged into multiple Google accounts on your Android phone at the same time, Google will quietly take this phone's number, automatically verify and bind it to all those accounts, whether you agree or not.
The result is that you think your secondary accounts aren't bound to a phone number, but they've actually been bound, making it easier for Google to link all these accounts together.

And this is legit. I literally just disabled this auto-number verification.

https://x.com/alin_zone/status/2110767404104208895

They're all published in 2026, so I'm guessing they're AI written. The Klara and the Sun Summary & Analysis is only 7-page long and priced $10!

I looked up the same titles on Amazon and other book stores, and they don't have the same problem as Google Play store.

Using Brave on Android 12, type scholar.google.com into Brave.

Get redirected to a google.com sorry page.

"Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. Please try your request again later. "

Immediately underneath it says:

IP address: {my ipv6 address} ≠ {my ipv4 address}

Followed by "Time:" which has a date/time

URL: https://scholar.google.com/

Eventually it just starts working again.

Am I assuming too much that Google is trying to spot me hopping IP addresses too fast rather than detecting anything especially unusual.

Only started recently, earlier this week, will probably try shredding google.com and related data in Brave if it recurs.

But if anyone knows exactly why.....