What's something common that in 20 years from now people won't believe we used to live this way?
What's something common that in 20 years from now people won't believe we used to live this way?
You're viewing a single thread.
As someone who has grown up watching Card Catalogs lose to electronic search, Internet Directories lose to electronic search, photo albums lose to electronic search, Curated Network Televisions lose out to ellectronic search, large-scale advertising lose out to electronic search...
I don't know. But whatever it is, 20 years from now, we'd say "Why didn't you have a search engine that could do that for you?"
With (general) search engines being on decline for years that looks not all that probable. No popular search engine even searches what you asked it to search more of what you probably meant if you were as dumb as their ai thinks you are.
Search engines are getting worse because they are moving towards selling you stuff instead of searching for stuff.
Amazon has become really bad.
Amazon is like that Stoner Uncle that says shit like, "just trust me bro, you need the DKAIRBGAUENBSHDBDJS 17-IN-ONE BACK MASSAGER TAX CALCULATOR LEFT SIDE ONLY LETTER OPENER CAT FOOD DISPENSER!"
And instead of providing said Uncle with powerful psychotropic medications and 24-7 supervision we made him into a multi-trillionaire.
I think it's a bit more insidious. Writing a good search engine has become much harder since the first iteration of Google. Yes the root of the issue is greed, but it's not all the fault of the search engine. Now you have to deal with SEO-optimized marketing material generated by AI.
Building a "good" search engine today is like entering an arms race.
Card Catalogs were these index-cards we kept in a cabinet that helped people look for a book. And don't say "word of mouth", because card catalogs didn't help with that. Card Catalogs helped you go from "Author or Subject" to "Book", so you were literally trying to figure out a book you already "had an idea" about.
Tell me, how do you look for new books today? Do you use Amazon's search engine? Google's search engine?
Internet Directories were these lists of webpages that we used to organize. It was before webrings. The gist is that an internet directory is a list of cool websites on a certain subject, and we can keep those lists organized. Alas, no one used them after good search engines were made.
Curated TV Networks are losing out to Netflix, Youtube, and TikTok. All of which are search-engine based media consumption technologies. All hail the algorithm.
Now tell me where "search" is actually losing in our society. Maybe Google isn't as dominant as it once was, but Netflix is still a damn search bar.
Maybe TikTok is finally something different: you don't even search anymore. The algorithm assumes it knows what videos you like and shoves the next video into your face.
Right I think your last point will be the thing we look back on in wonderment. You mean you used to have to TELL the website what you wanted? How am I supposed to know??