The Enshittification of the Internet

[spopepro]

Really an absolutely brilliant piece here, and something that resonates with the thinking that has been bouncing around this place since before the beginning. But with everything internet "community" related going down (and reddit the latest being on the steep decline) I just wanted to again express appreciation for the non-commercial nature of this place. Sure... forums are kinda boomer shit, but I think history will show that ~2005-2013 forum and blog community was peak internet.

[suspectdevice]

Really an absolutely brilliant piece here, and something that resonates with the thinking that has been bouncing around this place since before the beginning. But with everything internet "community" related going down (and reddit the latest being on the steep decline) I just wanted to again express appreciation for the non-commercial nature of this place. Sure... forums are kinda boomer shit, but I think history will show that ~2005-2013 forum and blog community was peak internet.

WNYC's On The Media did a multipart interview with Cory a few weeks ago that was a great listen.

[monadnocky]

WNYC's On The Media did a multipart interview with Cory a few weeks ago that was a great listen.

I've never heard an OTM broadcast that wasn't brilliant.

[suspectdevice]

I've never heard an OTM broadcast that wasn't brilliant.

At this point the only media i consume is media criticism. Meta

[spopepro]

At this point the only media i consume is media criticism. Meta

If TV journalism has devolved into journalists interviewing other journalists (especially bad in sports media) then it follows the only interesting writing will be from Poynter, Columbia Journalism Review, and the likes. Hell, it’s what made OG deadspin great (and I assume now Defector, tho I wouldn’t read it enough to justify a sub).

[sk_tle]

Another intersting take on the new web full of ai generated content:
https://www.platformer.news/p/the-ai-is-eating-itself

Given how free search engines are now pretty much useless to find interesting and human generated content, I feel we might have to start doing stuff the old way on the web, hosting regular web page where we share our own curated links section, join webrings certified to be managed by humans, etc.

Has anyone tried kagi as its main search engine?

[monadnocky]

Bumping this.
And now, YouTube, in its ceaseless striving to transform itself into something utterly crap from something that was fairly cool, will no longer play videos with ad blockers enabled.
Goodbye, YouTube. Oh - and eat sh*t.

[Scott G.]

Bumping this.
And now, YouTube, in its ceaseless striving to transform itself into something utterly crap from something that was fairly cool, will no longer play videos with ad blockers enabled.
Goodbye, YouTube. Oh - and eat sh*t.

Reducing U-Tube viewing is a positive social good.

[echappist]

Bumping this.
And now, YouTube, in its ceaseless striving to transform itself into something utterly crap from something that was fairly cool, will no longer play videos with ad blockers enabled.
Goodbye, YouTube. Oh - and eat sh*t.

I have no sympathy for advertising companies (and youtube is merely advertising presented in another manner), but one can get rid of all the ads by paying youtube.

At its core, the capitalist system is almost always quid pro quo. Youtube delivers content that is not free to host and transmit, and ads are just one of the ways to pay for it (another one being a subscription fee paid). To expect not to pay anything while still getting something in return is not a particularly solid moral ground on which to stand.

[echappist]

I'll gladly pay a fee if I knew that most of it was going to the content providers whom I watch (in fact, I've donated directly to several of those providers). I understand that there's a cost associated with hosting content on Google's end, but I have a sneaky suspicion that whatever subscription is paid, a disproportionate amount of that subscription goes to them and not the content provider in a fair and reasonably equitable manner (I really have no idea, I've never created anything to upload and only have a vague idea how it works). As I mentioned, I don't mind in-line advertising content that is usually (at least tangentially related) to the topic I'm watching - at best I'll have a look; at worst I'll just fast forward.

I'm not really into making one of the richest companies in the world any richer. So perhaps not solid moral ground, but I'm not terribly concerned about their bottom line, and the morality of blocking endless T-Mobile ads doesn't keep me up at night. And, at the end of the day, they're profiting immensely off of my data anyway, in a morally dubious manner that clicking "agree" by the user hardly mitigates.

Bumping this.
And now, YouTube, in its ceaseless striving to transform itself into something utterly crap from something that was fairly cool, will no longer play videos with ad blockers enabled.
Goodbye, YouTube. Oh - and eat sh*t.

There are several parties here: the viewers, the medium (Youtube), and the content creator.

I do not know enough about the content creators to be able to opine, but your post #7 above was used to bump this thread solely b/c youtube has disabled ad-blockers.

Which is why I mentioned paying so that one doesn't have to view the ads. It's highly likely that the monthly payment to AlphaBet is likely higher than what various entities pay AlphaBet to have their ads shown, but at the end of the day, if the question is whether one could be free from such bothersome and intrusive eyesores, the answer is yes.

And it should probably be noted here that intrusive advertising isn't just an internet thing: it's an American thing. I didn't quite understand how intrusive they were until I wanted to watch some BBC programming on BBC America, with 60-minute worth of footage gets chopped up and extended to 80 minutes to accommodate ads.

I guess I'm "fortunate" in the sense that I'm at a point in life where I don't mind shelling out extra to be free of nuisance, but I think it's quite worth it.

Which is not to say that I always pay for the ad-free tier service for my subscriptions, but rather, the stuff I watch (soccer) really isn't all that amenable to intrusive ads, and as such I never need to watch any ads.

[72gmc]

Also a fan of YouTube. I curse whoever approved the gargantuan ad buy for Hertz and their favorite under inflated quarterback, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying a video of a skilled craftsman while I perform less skillful bike repairs.