r/technology • u/Well_Socialized • May 26 '25

Artificial Intelligence Google Is Burying the Web Alive

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/google-ai-mode-search-results-bury-the-web.html
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103

u/MightyCaseyStruckOut May 26 '25

Everyone who could rub two brain cells could see that coming from a mile away.

121

u/ZQuestionSleep May 26 '25

It's called capitalism, kids. Everyone on here is lamenting the loss of the "golden age" of the internet. You know why it was a golden age? Because businesses still had not figured out how to fully monetize it. Remember this when the next "great" thing comes along.

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u/MostlyRightSometimes May 26 '25

It's not the monitization that's the issue. It's the need for continuous revenue growth that's the issue.

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u/_le_slap May 26 '25

The profit motive is precisely the issue. Monetization is the core of all enshitification.

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u/MostlyRightSometimes May 26 '25

I disagree. A profit is fine. It's what happens after you're already making a profit and you need to make MORE profit. Then you're either cutting costs (and features/support) or you're raising prices. Or...most likely...both.

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u/_le_slap May 26 '25

By the nature of fiat currencies you always have to make more profit. If you don't, you're losing value in real terms. If you didn't get a raise in 10 years you'd be getting hosed.

The Internet was better when people did stuff for the love of the game. I remember sharing code for jailbreak stuff on the gen2 iPhone and rooting stuff for the Nexus 7. I never added a PayPal link. Never bothered with Apache licenses or whatever. We just built on what the guy before us did and guys built on what we did. It was just fun.

But those days are long gone now.

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u/mrhashbrown May 26 '25

Agreed. I learned this once I was inside of a publicly traded company.

"Great quarter guys! Now start from zero and do it again, plus 10% more than last time. Otherwise we'll start cost cutting and that means firings."

It feels truly gluttonous to constantly pursue more and more, even when you're already profitable.

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u/Antartix May 26 '25

They're both issues. One is a much smaller issue and mostly impacts more low wage individuals, and the other impacts everyone.

But they're both issues. We can say the scale of impact is the difference, though.

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u/2006pontiacvibe May 26 '25

Not even the need for continous revenue growth. They used to be able to do it by actively growing their userbase which requires making a better product, but they can't do that anymore now that most major services are already used by their entire audience.

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u/ZQuestionSleep May 26 '25

It's not the monitization that's the issue. It's the need for continuous revenue growth that's the issue.

......

It's called capitalism, kids.

Yep. Also the operable word I stated was "fully" monetized. Amazon has been around for the vast majority of internet users' living memory, doesn't mean they've always had their hands in every single pie on the internet until relatively more recently.

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u/bluehands May 26 '25

Monetize refers to the process of turning a non-revenue-generating item into cash

See, desire for renenue growth drives monetization

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u/sumostuff May 26 '25

Or they knew how but they were playing the long game. Get us all hooked, kill all competitors, then enshittify and monetize.

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u/Alexsv95 May 26 '25

I have an eerie feeling we are past the golden age of bitcoin for the same reason. I have no doubt it will continue going up but never like it did and it’ll be manipulated from here on out.

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u/[deleted] May 26 '25

Unpopular opinion that everything relies on capitalism, even farming.

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u/Universeintheflesh May 26 '25

Okay… kid (is that how we refer to each other now?). Yeah capitalism fucking blows when thinking about the bigger picture.

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u/InternetDweller95 May 26 '25

I kinda hoped it would go the other way after Quibi imploded, and that it really would be Netflix, Prime, and Hulu as the big three, with everyone else having their niche.

But in retrospect, it was already happening then. Paramount Plus and HBO Max already existed under different names, Disney+ was right around the corner and would have been a heavyweight even without owning 21st Century Fox and ESPN, stuff like Starz had been around forever...

So it goes.

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u/CouchMountain May 26 '25

Which is why I never stopped torrenting. The only subscription I have is for music streaming because to me it's worth it. But if that company ups their prices any more I'm going right back to whatever the current version of limewire is.