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162 points lr0 | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.719s | source
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depingus ◴[] No.41834664[source]
I hope Kagi succeeds. But personally, I think the web is dead. And no search engine can save it.

SEO spam has been strangling the web for years. Now, genAI SEO spam has escalated that onto inhuman levels. To make matters worse, no one wants to post to the open web anymore because their posts are just going to drown in that sea of spam and only genai's data stealing bots will read them. As the amount of spam posted to the web increases, the amount of worthwhile content posted decreases. Eventually, nothing of value will be posted. (like facebook?)

You can lay the blame for the web's death squarely at Google's feet for allowing SEO to hijack search in the first place (or maybe the government is to blame for not breaking up Google's ad/search empire fast enough). Either way, the big companies all know the end is here and are gambling on genai to replace search. Already, places of knowledge are closing their borders and charging fees for genai to access.

We have entered the internet's dark age.

Fun aside: I think it's hilarious and fitting that Google's genai model sucks. And I hope they lose the genai wars (just out of spite, not because I think any other genai is worth a shit).

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RavlaAlvar ◴[] No.41834885[source]
Let say government nationalise google search or force to make it a non profit 15 years ago. How would that prevent SEO from happening? Isn’t SEO an inevitable outcome of website trying compete for attention? How would anyone prevent it from happening?
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1. surgical_fire ◴[] No.41835638[source]
That's an interesting idea.

While I don't have the answer, what we might consider is the incentives that come with each model.

In the current model, the incentives are clear. Google's incentive was to rent-seek all usefulness out of web search, privileging advertisement and their own profitability over usefulness.

I am not sure if a search engine beholden to the government would be ideal. Governments do have their own sets of interests (legitimate or otherwise) that may at times go against users.

Web search is in the end a piece of public infrastructure, used by billions across the world, very much subject to the Tragedy of the Commons.

Perhaps it should be some sort of nonprofit, as other projects are (Linux Foundation comes to mind, being a successful one).

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2. RavlaAlvar ◴[] No.41837333[source]
I would guess just the incentive for any website to become top of the search results would likely create the outcome of today’s SEO landscape.
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3. surgical_fire ◴[] No.41838415[source]
Except that Google is complicit and directly benefits of the current state of their search engine, no matter how awful it is to actually use it.