Even if it's possible to win the battle against SEO and junk sites (and I don't think it is), this is the best that commercial search engines will do, given their resources and incentives. No one else has been able to break in, for lack of quality, for lack of resources (it's expensive to index the web!), and b/c search engine brands are so sticky (that's why Google pays Apple ~$10 billion to be the default on Apple devices.)
If the junk web problem was so easy to solve, wouldn't another search engine be able to do so - like Bing with Microsoft's resources, or DDG with their unique outlook/guarantees?
So given the current economic system, the current governance regime, and the current culture, this is the best our civilization can do. Unless there's some sharp rift, the internet will stay the course.
I feel like this line of criticism feels a bit like screaming at the clouds.
Even if it's possible to win the battle against SEO and junk sites (and I don't think it is), this is the best that commercial search engines will do, given their resources and incentives. No one else has been able to break in, for lack of quality, for lack of resources (it's expensive to index the web!), and b/c search engine brands are so sticky (that's why Google pays Apple ~$10 billion to be the default on Apple devices.)
If the junk web problem was so easy to solve, wouldn't another search engine be able to do so - like Bing with Microsoft's resources, or DDG with their unique outlook/guarantees?
So given the current economic system, the current governance regime, and the current culture, this is the best our civilization can do. Unless there's some sharp rift, the internet will stay the course.
I feel like this line of criticism feels a bit like screaming at the clouds.