I suspected the author was dreaming when he said the lack of rich customization of the search algorithm is taking away from the end user experience. People don't want to learn about the intricacies of your search algorithm. You're assuming they care. All they want to do is type their question into the magical text box.
He also seems to not understand the value that search advertising provides. Search advertising is a win-win for businesses and consumers. If you see it as something parasitic that needs to be fixed, I can't take you seriously about "how Google will be beat".
Then I read the last sentence, quoted below. Sigh. Nothing serious here folks, carry on.
> I predict this will become more of a real possibility under decentralized smart contract systems such as the Ethereum blockchain, where value exchange itself can happen on a peer to peer basis (via a synergistic ecosystem of content curators, content providers, and content consumers).
Consumers are often in a "buy mindset" when searching for something. The phrasing of their search query can indicate it. For example, someone search for "cheap office chair" most likely already has their CC in hand. It's a search query that belongs as much on Amazon or Craigslist as it does on Google. So when it's searched on Google, the idea is that the market will provide more relevant results than an algorithm designed for ranking articles based around keywords and semantic equivalence of the content.
> So when it's searched on Google, the idea is that the market will provide more relevant results than an algorithm designed for ranking articles based around keywords and semantic equivalence of the content.
And the market does this in a relatively simple manner: by letting merchants bid on search keywords, and showing the site of the merchant with the highest bid, you force merchants to either lose money or be relevant.
In other words, the most relevant merchants to a search phrase will have the most money to bid up visibility for that phrase because they make the most money, on average, from users looking for this particular thing.
Good question, when the ETH contract drivel appeared at the end, I hope he is somehow meaning to pay users Ether to see ads. ProofOfView whatever.
People would fix Google if it had an API but it would mean censorship; I would add a ‘credible sources only’ button which is not good for the web but it is what I want. I do not care for traveldiscounters’ SEO or SO or Wikipedia scrapers; I care about the originals. That would greatly improve the experience, but in general it is bad for the internet because someone decides who is credible. Now there I see a place for Blockchain.
Forget about Ethereum for a minute. In the case of Wikipedia, no single company can produce the amount of content that they have on Wikipedia, especially with that reasonable standard of quality. Why is that? Wikipedia has a decentralized culture where principles are the main driver of decisions that are made. Wikipedia's collective Administrators, Bureaucrats, and Stewards do not compose a top-down management structure. It was not easy to do, requiring strong community outreach, culture building, and hard work. It is unlikely to be repeatable in the same fashion given that most Internet users feel they can find what they need online (the innovator in me disagrees with that sentiment, and I am very much aware that my opinion is a minority).
Ethereum, in my mind, is merely a way to help automate, standardize, and enforce similar systems. If it can be achieved without any sort of blockchain, like in the case of Wikipedia, then great. But perhaps the barrier to doing so is just out of reach without the help of the technology. Yes, having a central authority decide who is credible is exactly bad for the Internet, and Ethereum is a possible means to facilitate alternatives. What other alternatives would there be?
>Search advertising is a win-win for businesses and consumers. If you see it as something parasitic that needs to be fixed
Its absolutely parasitic and not a win for consumers. If it were a win for consumers then Google would not be so fantastically profitable.
Search results on Google are great provided you don't use a search query that indicates an intent to buy something. If you do that then the results turn terrible. Or profitable. Depends upon whom you ask.
Indeed - do a search for anything Google determines to be non-commercial (like "retrovirus", "contract for difference" or "banana") and they simply hand you off to Wikipedia. It's Wikipedia, and not Google, who really own the show when it comes to collating the world's knowledge.
Now that's a bit conspiratorial. Probably a majority of people searching for "retrovirus" clicked the Wikipedia article link. Google figured this out, and started listing it first. Nothing beyond Wikipedia fulfilling its role.
Definitely not assuming that the average users care about the algorithm, and you missed the point being made there: If that information is a successfully-guarded secret, nobody else is going to create an incremental improvement over that specific type of feature. That point was intended to lead into the greater premise of the post, which is that the conventional wisdom of competing with Google by going toe to toe, is not viable. I apologize that my writing is not as intuitive as Google's user interface.
Especially given the amount of vitriol I see on Hacker News regarding decentralization technologies (not surprising given the heavy ties to Silicon Valley's centralization culture), your condescending comment wasn't helpful to the discussion. But I appreciate you giving it a full read nonetheless.
I don't know if an open collaborative approach to search is really possible given that there's a whole SEO industry out there. If we could have the equivalent of white hat SEO folks help point out flaws and exploitable bits, then maybe?
I'm going to restate because I suspect miscommunication here... my point was that an apparent 'centralisation culture' is a result of building centralised tech being typically simpler/cheaper than building decentralised.
I understand that you used the word "typically" but Wikipedia is relatively simple (by some metrics), and operates on a relatively low budget, and is decentralized (managed by the users, not the Foundation). In fact, a company with Google's resources, working 100% toward building the equivalent of Wikipedia, would not have a guarantee of successfully doing so, with the entirety of their paid staff, let alone figuring out how to make a return on the investment. Perhaps IF they had done so, our Googlepedia would be an Encyclopedia Brittanica, with a search bar, and ads. And everybody would argue that there is no possible way for a competing business to earn more revenue, with a similar product. Completely missing the vision because Wikipedia never existed in that universe.
That is the power of decentralization, regardless of the naysayers and corporate shills who continue to dismiss the whole concept, by citing examples of alpha-quality solidity contracts. Ethereum, despite being itself barely beta-quality, and highly primitive technology of its kind, is still a disruptive technology that threatens the status quo. Creating an app that has the strengths of Wikipedia, but functions like Google, Facebook, or Twitter will be an order of magnitude easier with the help of this technology, and the right team. Maybe not enough to disrupt things outright, but certainly enough to be a large threat, and the next generation of that type of technology will have a near-guarantee to bring that disruption. Obviously there is a lot of vested interest with deep pockets, toward discrediting it. The resulting narrative, combined with the consumer culture/sentiment toward the products by the same companies, is what makes up the centralization culture. I think we need a catchier phrase, maybe even a buzzword to describe it :P
Don't get me wrong, I think many crypto enthusiasts out there are insufferable man-children with criminal records and an axe to grind with "the man". So blockchain's culture might be the problem in the sense that some of the users are giving the technology a bad name.
Sorry, I disagree with your Wikipedia example. If Wikipedia is decentralised then so is literally any other site with user-generated content/moderation. Wikipedia's technology, policies, financing and infrastructure are all controlled centrally. For me that example stretches the word 'decentralised' past the point where it's useful.
Wikipedia is open source content though, which was a big aspect of it being successful at the beginning (as in, many of us wouldn't have bothered to write content for it had it become proprietary).
Open-licensed content cannot be said to be controlled by one party, as anyone is legally entitled to create a fork. Thus, Wikipedia is not controlled by the people who run the servers; the infrastructure may be centralized, but the project (the compilation of knowledge, and the articles produced) is not. This aspect of control is what I said you were missing in your assessment, and it seems I was right.
Decentralization is not a binary characteristic. It is an architectural pattern that can be applied in varied contexts, varied degrees, toward varied goals. It is also a process. You can't decentralize something that is already decentralized. Wikipedia was a pioneer in Web 2.0. Smart contracts and decentralized apps are being referred to as Web 3.0 (So was the semantic web for a number of years, but the semantic web will likely be part of this).
Ethereum is a platform for creating decentralized applications, and it too has technology and policy that is managed by a central foundation. That doesn't mean that the ecosystem is centralized.
Zooming out, we can see that the Linux Kernel development itself has a centralized development model, even with a dictator in charge. But the Kernel is a platform for which anyone can create and ship a distribution on top of. As a result, I am able to enjoy the use of three or four distros (or more, if I wanted) that are most tailored to my use cases, instead of being forced to choose between Pepsi and Coke (Windows and OS X). And many people can get into operating system development as a hobby, with a much more achievable criteria to do so.
We can zoom out even further: The FOSS movement itself might not have existed without the relentless efforts of a few individuals over a span of many years. But from day one, the ecosystem it spawned was decentralized by design.
Going back even further, we can show that market Capitalism allowed for a rapid and diverse pace of technology and business development. Less barriers to entry. Less red tape. Obviously we have had governments, both big and small, to facilitate the economies of a nation.
What do all of these things have in common other than incorporating applied forms of decentralization? It is not just a buzzword. It is no coincidence that these frameworks have (or will) foster significant societal changes, mostly in good ways. That's not to say that the success rate is high for any given effort, but it is not a concept to be written off, especially not because of a lack of understanding of it.
The problem is that most people, even here, cannot visualize this concept in ways that they have not seen working examples of. Not a problem, not everybody is exactly a visionary in every way. But when people are actively trash talking ideas that they don't understand, without offering constructive opinions toward an understanding of it, then as technologists we ought to be taking a stand against that behavior.
Instead, what I see in many cases is that many engineers, for whatever reason, will write off certain technology ideas, believing that they understand it, when they do not. I was one of those people, for years, so I understand the mindset as good as anybody. Or perhaps they saw too many uninformed comments coming from non-technical crypto enthusiasts, and therefore have written off the idea. Folks, if this describes you, I encourage taking up the study of critical thinking techniques. The world deserves better than to have such a large number of engineers not giving the discussion a fair shake.
Now you've diluted your "centralisation culture" comment to "engineers, for whatever reason, will write off certain technology ideas" I can probably agree with it.
He also seems to not understand the value that search advertising provides. Search advertising is a win-win for businesses and consumers. If you see it as something parasitic that needs to be fixed, I can't take you seriously about "how Google will be beat".
Then I read the last sentence, quoted below. Sigh. Nothing serious here folks, carry on.
> I predict this will become more of a real possibility under decentralized smart contract systems such as the Ethereum blockchain, where value exchange itself can happen on a peer to peer basis (via a synergistic ecosystem of content curators, content providers, and content consumers).