Thanks Scott. IMO internet for me peaked around 2012 or so. Enough archived and new info found its way there and algo-curated content / search results wasn’t a big thing. It also hadn’t gone “Strictly Commercial” yet. I vaguely remember having agency over what I was looking for and search operators (+-“” etc) worked.
Strictly Commercial came in first soon thereafter, and the sense of bot- like manipulation faded in shortly thereafter even though I certainly had no name for that sense yet.
Today it’s like using Google maps to give you directions on a familiar route you take every day and then the moment comes when it changes it up. In that moment one has to choose: do I take my usual path or do I follow its instructions assuming it’s For My Own Good? Few today understand how dangerous the latter assumption and induced action truly is.
Thanks Scott. IMO internet for me peaked around 2012 or so. Enough archived and new info found its way there and algo-curated content / search results wasn’t a big thing. It also hadn’t gone “Strictly Commercial” yet. I vaguely remember having agency over what I was looking for and search operators (+-“” etc) worked.
Strictly Commercial came in first soon thereafter, and the sense of bot- like manipulation faded in shortly thereafter even though I certainly had no name for that sense yet.
Today it’s like using Google maps to give you directions on a familiar route you take every day and then the moment comes when it changes it up. In that moment one has to choose: do I take my usual path or do I follow its instructions assuming it’s For My Own Good? Few today understand how dangerous the latter assumption and induced action truly is.
These bots serve someone and it ain’t us.