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598 points leotravis10 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.49s | source
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bawolff ◴[] No.45129304[source]
There has been this trend recently of calling Wikipedia the last good thing on the internet.

And i agree its great, i spend an inordinate amount of my time on Wikimedia related things.

But i think there is a danger here with all these articles putting Wikipedia too much on a pedestal. It isn't perfect. It isn't perfectly neutral or perfectly reliable. It has flaws.

The true best part of Wikipedia is that its a work in progress and people are working to make it a little better everyday. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact we aren't there yet. We'll never be "there". But hopefully we'll continue to be a little bit closer every day. And that is what makes Wikipedia great.

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stevage ◴[] No.45137707[source]
I would say that OpenStreetMap is also a pretty good thing on the internet. Maybe not quite as impactful, and I'd say less well run, and rougher around the edges, but it's largely resisted being taken over by evil corporations or heavily influenced in bad directions.
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1. trollbridge ◴[] No.45137933[source]
Basically. Things that don’t rely either ads or data collection.
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2. mdnahas ◴[] No.45157050[source]
I think that’s the key. When users pay, the company works to serve them better. When advertisers pay, the incentives are to attract users by any means (blinking lights, big emotions, fraud, etc.) and keep them on the website longer.

The latest example of this behavior for me is recipe websites that do SEO to get the top spot on Google and then serve you a 30-page long webpage full of ads with the recipe at the bottom.

I think a huge part of the world’s current problems come from “news” sites that are funded by ads.