Simple answer --- stop using Google.
Get your friends and family and other internet users to do the same.
The only thing likely to get their attention is if enough people follow suit.
Get your friends and family and other internet users to do the same.
The only thing likely to get their attention is if enough people follow suit.
Just do the thing and the problem is gone.
Very similar to “Draw the rest of the owl.”
The problem is people don’t “just”. We’re complicated critters with our own needs, capabilities, and goals. At an individual level, a person may not be capable of the “just” due to factors outside of their control. With a society, the resistance to change grows exponentially. You can’t scale one person at a time.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Sometimes you can make a big difference to the people around you. But you’re gonna have a difficult time changing in the world.
Yes and no. There's certainly the potential for a more flexible and adapt-minded culture for the same reason there's not... Human behavior.
Yes, once norms are established they're slow to change but that's how the culture is nudged and "managed". It's not necessarily how humans arw hardwired.
Eons ago, slow to adapt would mean certain death. Currently, fast to adapt labels you a rebel, a freak, an odd-ball, etc.
That is all I meant when I said society.
If you're an advertiser, you can't just switch from Google and hope to change anything. You'd be hurting yourself to no benefit, probably. Collective action is your main hope.
It's not like this for users of search. Google can lose its search leadership one user at a time. When the user switches, "the problem is gone" for that user, and Google has that much less revenue. Gradient descent is powerful.
The “just” refers to ignoring that other factors are involved.
If your personal goal is to convert X people to do something, you are accounting for it.
If your goal is a specific call to action to have people voluntarily join you, you are accounting for it.
If you’re stating a lot of people need to change, you’re acknowledging the scope of the problem.
If you’re doing these things, you can make a difference. Go do the thing! Have others join you!
If you say everyone should just do it and walk away thinking you have the solution to the problem, you don’t. :)
Quicker and easier than "Draw the rest of the owl" and not outside anyone's control.
That’s the “thing”. The thing is always trivial to the person making the statement. The thing is completely irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make.
The “just” is other people.
"Simple answer, just stop electing corrupt politicans"
"Simple answer, just stop war"
k
Edit to add: and since we're talking about indie web: https://search.marginalia.nu/
When someone complains to you directly about Google search results being shit, maybe point them to Kagi and mention it has a free trial account (100 searches still?) that's not time limited.
That way they'll have a solution they can turn to the next time Google pisses them off significantly. :)
https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/the-rol...
(duckduckgo.com returned it as the 5th returned result (not bad)),
Thanks!
Not saying calling for a boycott is enough but it’s easy to avoid Google nowadays.
If it says "Google", you really don't want it.
Some may be a little slow to come around to this realization but it's growing.
For example, more than half of internet users are now taking active steps to block "personalized advertising" which is Google's bread and butter.
Ok another note, your karma is very close to 2381. Make sure you get a screenshot :)
Using a different search engine, is just about the easiest kind of switch you could do. It's easier than, say, eating a different type of snack than you usually eat, or switching out your usual mug/plate/utensil.
Have a great day.