Who Broke the Internet?

[julian@community.nodebb.org]

Today I’m listening to Who Broke the Internet?, a four-part series by pluralistic@mamot.fr on CBC’s Understood podcast.

> Google Search was the gold standard — a product born in a dorm room during the internet’s early, idealistic era. But when internal emails surfaced they revealed a deeper conflict inside the company: was Google making Search worse, on purpose, to boost ad revenue? Google says its changes are all about benefiting users. Critics say it’s all part of a bigger pattern — one that host Cory Doctorow calls enshittification: the slow, deliberate decay of platforms in the name of profit.

Have you noticed internet search has become next to useless? It’s like the arms-race between search and spam is ramping up, and not in a good way. Cory lays out the foundation that it isn’t that simple, and that the degradation of search was brought on internally.

Check it out here or wherever you get your podcasts!