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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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Google reneged on the monopolistic bargain

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and TOMORROW in SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

A funny thing happened on the way to the enshittocene: Google – which astonished the world when it reinvented search, blowing Altavista and Yahoo out of the water with a search tool that seemed magic – suddenly turned into a pile of shit.

Google's search results are terrible. The top of the page is dominated by spam, scams, and ads. A surprising number of those ads are scams. Sometimes, these are high-stakes scams played out by well-resourced adversaries who stand to make a fortune by tricking Google:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/phone-numbers-airlines-listed-google-directed-scammers-rcna94766

But often these scams are perpetrated by petty grifters who are making a couple bucks at this. These aren't hyper-resourced, sophisticated attackers. They're the SEO equivalent of script kiddies, and they're running circles around Google:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Google search is empirically worsening. The SEO industry spends every hour that god sends trying to figure out how to sleaze their way to the top of the search results, and even if Google defeats 99% of these attempts, the 1% that squeak through end up dominating the results page for any consequential query:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

Google insists that this isn't true, and if it is true, it's not their fault because the bad guys out there are so numerous, dedicated and inventive that Google can't help but be overwhelmed by them:

https://searchengineland.com/is-google-search-getting-worse-389658

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Google has long maintained that its scale is the only thing that keeps us safe from the scammers and spammers who would otherwise overwhelm any lesser-resourced defender. That's why it was so imperative that they pursue such aggressive growth, buying up hundreds of companies and integrating their products with search so that every mobile device, every ad, every video, every website, had one of Google's tendrils in it.

This is the argument that Google's defenders have put forward in their messaging on the long-overdue antitrust case against Google, where we learned that Google is spending $26b/year to make sure you never try another search engine:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-27/google-paid-26-3-billion-to-be-default-search-engine-in-2021

Google, we were told, had achieved such intense scale that the normal laws of commercial and technological physics no longer applied. Take security: it's an iron law that "there is no security in obscurity." A system that is only secure when its adversaries don't understand how it works is not a secure system. As Bruce Schneier says, "anyone can design a security system that they themselves can't break. That doesn't mean it works – just that it works for people stupider than them."

And yet, Google operates one of the world's most consequential security system – The Algorithm (TM) – in total secrecy. We're not allowed to know how Google's ranking system works, what its criteria are, or even when it changes: "If we told you that, the spammers would win."

Well, they kept it a secret, and the spammers won anyway.

A viral post by Housefresh – who review air purifiers – describes how Google's algorithmic failures, which send the worst sites to the top of the heap, have made it impossible for high-quality review sites to compete:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

You've doubtless encountered these bad review sites. Search for "Best ______ 2024" and the results are a series of near-identical lists, strewn with Amazon affiliate links. Google has endlessly tinkered with its guidelines and algorithmic weights for review sites, and none of it has made a difference. For example, when Google instituted a policy that reviewers should "discuss the benefits and drawbacks of something, based on your own original research," sites that had previously regurgitated the same lists of the same top ten Amazon bestsellers "peppered their pages with references to a ‘rigorous testing process,’ their ‘lab team,’ subject matter experts ‘they collaborated with,’ and complicated methodologies that seem impressive at a cursory look."

But these grandiose claims – like the 67 air purifiers supposedly tested in Better Homes and Gardens's Des Moines lab – result in zero in-depth reviews and no published data. Moreover, these claims to rigorous testing materialized within a few days of Google changing its search ranking and said that high rankings would be reserved for sites that did testing.

Most damning of all is how the Better Homes and Gardens top air purifiers perform in comparison to the – extensively documented – tests performed by Housefresh: "plagued by high-priced and underperforming units, Amazon bestsellers with dubious origins (that also underperform), and even subpar devices from companies that market their products with phrases like ‘the Tesla of air purifiers.’"

One of the top ranked items on BH&G comes from Molekule, a company that filed for bankruptcy after being sued for false advertising. The model BH&G chose was ranked "the worst air purifier tested" by Wirecutter and "not living up to the hype" by Consumer Reports. Either BH&G's rigorous testing process is a fiction that they infused their site with in response to a Google policy change, or BH&G absolutely sucks at rigorous testing.

BH&G's competitors commit the same sins – literally, the exact same sins. Real Simple's reviews list the same photographer and the photos seem to have been taken in the same place. They also list the same person as their "expert." Real Simple has the same corporate parent as BH&G: Dotdash Meredith. As Housefresh shows, there's a lot of Dotdash Meredith review photos that seem to have been taken in the same place, by the same person.

But the competitors of these magazines are no better. Buzzfeed lists 22 air purifiers, including that crapgadget from Molekule. Their "methodology" is to include screenshots of Amazon reviews.

A lot of the top ranked sites for air purifiers are once-great magazines that have been bought and enshittified by private equity giants, like Popular Science, which began as a magazine in 1872 and became a shambling zombie in 2023, after its PE owners North Equity LLC decided its googlejuice was worth more than its integrity and turned it into a metastatic chumbox of shitty affiliate-link SEO-bait. As Housefresh points out, the marketing team that runs PopSci makes a lot of hay out of the 150 years of trust that went into the magazine, but the actual reviews are thin anaecdotes, unbacked by even the pretense of empiricism (oh, and they loooove Molekule).

Some of the biggest, most powerful, most trusted publications in the world have a side-hustle in quietly producing SEO-friendly "10 Best ___________ of 2024" lists: Rolling Stone, Forbes, US News and Report, CNN, New York Magazine, CNN, CNET, Tom's Guide, and more.

Google literally has one job: to detect this kind of thing and crush it. The deal we made with Google was, "You monopolize search and use your monopoly rents to ensure that we never, ever try another search engine. In return, you will somehow distinguish between low-effort, useless nonsense and good information. You promised us that if you got to be the unelected, permanent overlord of all information access, you would 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.'"

They broke the deal.

Companies like CNET used to do real, rigorous product reviews. As Housefresh points out, CNET once bought an entire smart home and used it to test products. Then Red Ventures bought CNET and bet that they could sell the house, switch to vibes-based reviewing, and that Google wouldn't even notice. They were right.

https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/welcome-to-the-cnet-smart-home/

Google downranks sites that spend money and time on reviews like Housefresh and GearLab, and crams botshittened content mills like BH&G into our eyeballs instead.

In 1558, Thomas Gresham coined (ahem) Gresham's Law: "Bad money drives out good." When counterfeit money circulates in the economy, anyone who gets a dodgy coin spends it as quickly as they can, because the longer you hold it, the greater the likelihood that someone will detect the fraud and the coin will become worthless. Run this system long enough and all the money in circulation is funny money.

An internet run by Google has its own Gresham's Law: bad sites drive out good. It's not just that BH&G can "test" products at a fraction of the cost of Housefresh – through the simple expedient of doing inadequate tests or no tests at all – so they can put a lot more content up that Housefresh. But that alone wouldn't let them drive Housefresh off the front page of Google's search results. For that, BH&G has to mobilize some of their savings from the no test/bad test lab to do real rigorous science: science in defeating Google's security-through-obscurity system, which lets them command the front page despite publishing worse-than-useless nonsense.

Google has lost the spam wars. In response to the plague of botshit clogging Google search results, the company has invested in…making more botshit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Last year, Google did a $70b stock buyback. They also laid off 12,000 staffers (whose salaries could have been funded for 27 years by that stock buyback). They just laid off thousands more employees.

That wasn't the deal. The deal was that Google would get a monopoly, and they would spend their monopoly rents to be so good that you could just click "I'm feeling lucky" and be teleported to the very best response to your query. A company that can't figure out the difference between a scam like Better Homes and Gardens and a rigorous review site like Housefresh should be pouring every spare dime it brings in into fixing this problem. Not buying default search status on every platform so that we never try another search engine: they should be fixing their shit.

When Google admits that it's losing the war to these kack-handed spam-farmers, that's frustrating. When they light $26b/year on fire making sure you don't ever get to try anything else, that's very frustrating. When they vaporize seventy billion dollars on financial engineering and shoot one in ten engineers, that's outrageous.

Google's scale has transcended the laws of business physics: they can sell an ever-degrading product and command an ever-greater share of our economy, even as their incompetence dooms any decent, honest venture to obscurity while providing fertile ground – and endless temptation – for scammers.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

#pluralistic #monopoly #seo #dark seo #google #search #enshittification #platform decay #product reviews #spam #antitrust #trustbusting

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faunandfloraas · 26 days

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2017 vs. 2024

#you can be a dark rapper AND a fairy princess #seo changbin teaches us this #Seo Changbin #changbin edit #bystay #createskz #stray kids #skzedit #skz gifs #analook #stray kids gifs #staydaily #kpopedit

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chriscentric · 4 months

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cw // fem!reader, mating press, light daddy kink, one mention of pussy slap, creampie n breeding!

“yeah baby? do you like it when i hold you down like this? you’re such a good slut for me, taking all of me like the good girl you are”

“y-yes"

"yes what pretty girl? speak up, let me hear you"

"yes d-daddy"

"good girl"

he chuckles, thrusting his hips faster in a steady pace. having you jumped his bones the minute he stepped foot inside of the apartment was not a part of his after-gym routine. but who is he to deny his pretty baby?

with your nails scratching his back deliciously, he swore up and down he could cum just from it. and he would, honestly. especially when your filthy cunt is gripping him down like a vice, practically begging for him to breed you again and again until you passed out from overstimulation.

your legs dangled uselessly up in the air, while your beloved boyfriend held you down as hard as he could. it's apparent to you and everyone that all of his gym workouts paid off, especially when he's using all of his strength into fucking the life out of you and knocking the wind out of your lungs, leaving you breathless and gasping for air.

with one final thrust and a particularly sharp slap to your face, he came inside you, hard, for the third time tonight. pulling his cock out of your gaping hole, he watched as it pushes out the copious amount of thick cum down to the mattress, messing up the sheets.

"you're gonna be a good girl for me and let me stuff you with my cum again baby? hm? you seriously don't think i'm gonna let you waste daddy's cum don't you?"

"stop squirming and stay still. daddy's gonna wreck your dirty cunt and make you all swollen and full once i'm done with you. you'd like that yeah?"

with two sharp slap to your clit, he started pushing his cock into you again. inch by inch.

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go-saeng · 6 months

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락 [studio choom] :: 3racha 💣

#bang chan #seo changbin #han jisung #ultkpop #malegroupsnet #chan #changbin #jisung #stray kids #dark binnie #my marshmallow #my squirrel boi #flashing tw

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tawus · 6 months

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New chapter!

Fandom: Strangers From Hell (TV) / Hell is Other People (webtoon)

Pairing: Seo Moon-jo x Reader, Seo Moon-jo x You

Synopsis: After the accident last year your life turned upside down. Your career came to mean nothing, you lost all your friends, and your marriage was on the verge of falling apart. And the worst thing about all of it? You didn't care. Ever since that day you ceased to live – you merely existed, counting hours, counting days. Unhappy. Numb.

Until one night in a vacant parking lot you witness a gruesome scene and something shifts in you irreversibly. From the moment you met him you knew you could never go back to who you were.

Tags: Moon-jo is his own warning tbh, stockholm syndrome, corruption, sadomasochism, blood and injury, gore, murder, torture, dubcon, violence, prostheses, referred past trauma, car accidents, cannibalism, afab reader, manipulation, nsfw, darkfic

Status: in progress (let's pray in a karaoke room that the updates will be more or less regular)

Your handbag fell from your hand with a dull thud when he and you locked in eye contact all the way across the parking lot. The mannequin of him came to life with a wave of invigoration that visibly rolled from his knees up to his shoulders, which straightened and squared to you. He began walking, each step shortened by his long legs, as he stalked like a leopard towards you, the prey, which was seemingly too petrified to even attempt escape. With each measured step, the distance between you grew infinitesimal while the well-blacks of his eyes grew infinite.

The man came to stand before you and graced you with a once-over from head to toe, before reaching into his pants pocket for a new vial and filling up another syringe – this one just for you. One of his large gloved hands curled around your neck as his other hand brought the tip of the syringe to the side of it. The tip of the needle, hungry to pierce, swelled with liquid Articaine and dripped a single drop of it onto the collar of your blouse – when the man’s assurance in his actions unexpectedly faltered.

Read it here:

• Chapter 1

• Chapter 2

• Chapter 3

• Chapter 4

• Chapter 5

• Chapter 6

• Chapter 7 >>

#strangers from hell #hell is other people #seo moon joo #seo moonjo #moonjou #moon-jo #seo moon-jo x reader #moonjo x reader #moonjo x you #moon-jo x you #lee dong wook #lee dong wook x reader #lee dong wook x you #tawus #minus elytra #dark fic #dark fantasy

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wieqo · 1 month

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༂៓ ⃝🌺 ༩ your Love Hurts

#͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏#soojin moodboard #seo soojin #agassy #messy moodboard #random moodboard #edgy moodboard #dark moodboard #kpop moodboard #girls moodboard #ksoloists #kpop messy moodboard #alternative moodboard #archive moodboard #grunge moodboard

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thefiery-phoenix · 1 month

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yandere h.c for Sam, too <33

Sure

YANDERE SAMUEL SEO HEADCANONS

There are no words to express how much I simp for this man despite him being a walking red banner lol

If you've managed to catch his attention, all I can say is RUN. Although that wouldn't really do you much good either since he's the President of the Worker's Affiliates and he does have a lot of influence, being Eugene's right hand man(before stabbing him in the back) does have it's own advantages. You could be a regular cafe worker or a member of the Worker's Affiliates, whatever it is, when he lands his eyes on you the only thought that will be running through his head will be 'They're MINE'

He's one territorial, possessive, obsessive and manipulative MF to say the least. He has no qualms even going as far as literally THREATENING the people you're close to, friends and family included just so he can be with you. A literal walking red flag, his arrogant cocky smirk itself should be obvious. He wants possess you and make you his completely, he'll fall HARD for you and when he does, he won't be able to come back from that chasm of obsessive love for you. You remind him of a small little prey, so helpless and naive and he likes it that way. Don't get him wrong, he does love you, in his own twisted obsessive manner of course

Man here has abandonment issues to the core, daddy issues, Gun issues(Lol who doesn't) and insecurities as well but when you comfort him, he's confused at first, he's genuinely taken aback. It's been so long since he's remembered someone taking the time and effort to comfort him and make sure he's doing all right. He'll reply in a calm and stoic manner that he's fine but deep down his heart is racing wildly, he's secretly really glad you're taking the time to comfort him. He'd rather die than admit this but he does appreciate your gesture. He likes how innocent and sweet you are, which makes him want to protect you and keep you safe. With him. Where you rightfully belong

He's really not above bugging your entire apartment with hidden cameras so he can get a glimpse of your daily life, it's like a window into what you do everyday. He finds it so amusing and thinks it's adorable how you haven't figured out that he's secretly watching every move you do. He'll have his men find out more about you and the amount of information he has on you, he's ready to write a whole freaking research paper about you, that's how well he knows you now. Your social media accounts, your contacts list and yes, even all those fan fiction sites you like reading and visiting...he'll have them all. He'll immediately block all the people he doesn't like, he doesn't want some random pest stealing you away from him. He'll get information on those annoying pesky friends of yours and his mind will be racing of thoughts on how to dispose of them as soon as possible so you'll be his in every way possible

No matter what, Samuel is ALWAYS around you one way or another. If some random person tries to hit on you or something, the very next day they'll immediately be reported missing. People will start disappearing from your life like flies and it's all HIS doing. He either pays them money to prevent them from seeing you again or he'll just straight up murder them. Though he does lean towards the second option quite frequently. If you try to accuse him of something, he'll just smirk at you and say something like "Sweetheart, you're mistaken. I wouldn't act as rash and unprofessional as this..." Yeah Right

You'll be kidnapped pretty soon because no WAY is he going to stand by and let someone try to steal you from him. You're HIS. You'll wake up on his bed while he'll have his usual standard smirk on his face as his arms are crossed over his muscular tattooed chest and he strides over to you. "Ah good, you're awake...there are going to be some changes to your lifestyle now'' he says in a calm manner as he lights a cigarette and smokes it calmly, like everything is all right after he literally just kidnapped you. Scream and throw as many number of tantrums as you want, he'll just find you amusing. If you want to cry, he might pretend to be slightly annoyed at first but he'll sigh softly as he wipes your tears with his thumb and then whisper in that husky voice of his in your ear to be good for him unless you want your loved ones to be safe. Sadistic MF

You, of course won't know the reality of what he actually does and he prefers to keep it that way. What you don't know won't hurt you. Though he might be unhinged at times, he has his soft moments with you as well. He likes to hold you in his arms and press soft kisses to the nape of your neck and steal a few kisses on your lips every now and then. His kisses on your lips always leave you wanting for more and slightly gasping for air, he's that good lol. He just likes physical intimacy with you a lot. He might not be too expressive by words about his feelings of love for you but he believes that his actions are enough to make up for them. If anyone else touches his hair, he'd have broken their hand by now but if it's you, he'll have a soft smile on his face and pull you on his lap as he hums contentedly. It really HAS been a while since he's felt so happy and he couldn't have been more thankful since you came into his life

He'll take you out for dates in fancy restaurants and spoil you with whatever your heart desires. Or if you want to have a quiet night in, that could be arranged too with you in his arms. I seriously pity the poor fool who tries to hurt you or steal you from him though. He will straight up TORTURE them with the way he fights. He loses complete self control when he fights, his mind is like a beast filled with pure unadulterated anger and rage as he breaks the bones of whatever schmuck dared to set their filthy eyes on you. Or he'll just kill them, not after banging their head to the wall over and over again and stomping on their face as he calmly smokes a cigarette (because MOOD) and he'll end up choking the person to death with one hand. After that's done, he'll grumble about how he's got blood on his suit but he's glad to go back home to be with you. Don't question the blood on his suit...just don't, for the sake of your sanity. He does get rather annoyed when they keep screaming for mercy though, he'll just smile at them in an unnerving manner and cut their tongue off to silence them

Samuel adores you and loves you with all his twisted heart. Deep down he's still a bit insecure of himself. Don't even think of leaving him, it's a death wish. He'll just track your location in a few moments and he'll drag you back home. You'll end up being tied to his bed until you earn your freedom and his trust to move around again. Besides, you don't need to whine and complain so much, not when he's the one taking care of you. He's ready to do ANYTHING to ensure you stay by his side no matter what...

#yandere lookism characters x reader #yandere lookism #yandere lookism characters #yandere lookism x reader #yandere samuel seo #yandere samuel seo x reader #yandere samuel seo headcanons #yandere samuel seo imagines #yandere samuel seo oneshots #yandere samuel seo scenarios #dark lookism characters x reader #dark lookism characters #dark lookism x reader #dark lookism

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