Ensh*tification of The Internet

I’ve just finished the first in a series of articles relating to the privacy and security of your electronic life. This has led me down some rabbit holes that are very worrying. Seriously scary.

One rabbit hole that isn’t scary nor quite fitting in with the series is a term banded around called ensh*tification of the internet. It is something I have commented on in bits on here a few times when frustrated. However it does seem to be a recurring theme amongst many online offerings.

Google quote:

When launching Google search, the founders understood the requirements of good customer service.

“Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users.”

And they were quite correct! But have chosen maximum price extraction and the poorest customer service they can get away with.

Google Search

Anyone noticed how poor Google search has become? Ten to twenty years ago I tried several search engines and none of them came close to being as useful. Now neither does google.

If I look something up I get one of three things,

1. Their AI answers. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t and gets in the way. Replaces the original webpage that would have provided the information, and probably allowed for a deeper dive should I have wished.
2. A load of sponsored adverts. Often not quite what I’m looking for. If they were, they would have come to the top of the search anyway. Or they wouldn’t…
3. A load of ads displaying items for sale. Sometimes useful but often not. As with number two, when you finally get to the links below them, the stuff isn’t normally what you’re looking for.

It almost looks like that if you don’t pay to get displayed at the top of a search you haven’t a chance of being displayed at all now. The customer experience is rubbish but Google no longer cares, it is about maximising profits and extracting every penny of revenue.

Others

YouTube now has sponsored ads first in a search too. Although the searches do currently find most of what I am looking for. Saying that, I find most of my content from related videos to the one I’m watching. Many say that useful content isn’t shown if it is of the wrong opinions. And without an ad blocker the ads make many videos unwatchable. Furthermore, Google is now using Manifest v3, over Manifest v2 in the Chrome browser. Told it is for privacy reasons, but really about stopping ad blockers. And they are using it to inject ads into the web pages with tracking cookies. You can’t opt out of them and are an AI bot feature.

Amazon too now shows sponsored ads when you search for goods. I avoid them on principle, but it is annoying. Their Prime is getting more expensive and ‘Prime’ delivery often requires a minimum spend and you have to manually select the fastest delivery option. On their TV offering, we now have to endure ads unless we volunteer to pay extra.

Uber, once a way of breaking council-run taxi rackets, has proved nothing like their original service. They are often now dearer than booking a normal taxi. Their Uber Eats is a master class in extracting extra money from you. The corker is the extra fast delivery service at extra charge – that cannot be claimed against unless it is twenty minutes later than their promise.

Adobe has been screwing its customers for more profit and employing very sharp practice.

Netflix, also has been getting poorer. They have far less quality content, and their woke ideology has prevented them from producing a lot of their own too. Yet they now want more money from you, and foist ads too.

EBay was the first to go. It is a waste of time trying to use unless looking for a specific second hand item. I think I have used it only twice in the last ten years.

So why is this happening and customer service not improving?

All these companies have used a similar model. First they offer a great service to customers. Then they make it attractive to suppliers. When they have market dominance they sh*t on both knowing there is nowhere else to go.

Also opportunities to prevent a monopoly are not taken up. In the USA, Adobe was allowed to buy up their biggest competitor. At the first attempt they were prevented for 10 years. At the next attempt they were allowed. Now we are all suffering a worse offering.

How to change it

Only way to truly change it is to enable new competitors to enter the market. That means finding ways to break up the organisms, or forcing them to not run below breakeven when a new entrant tries. Neither is easy and the second would be prohibitively expensive and bureaucratic.

When there has been fragmentation ie. video streaming, it has ended up costing us all.

Around the edges there are a few YouTube competitors. TikTok looked like a real danger and the US Government banned it, for fears of Chinese data harvesting. TikTok data harvesting is minimal compared to Meta, Google, Apple and Microsoft!

One way would be data protection. That would seriously blunt their business model. In the meantime the best one can do is resist using them regardless.

Rant over.
 

© Jerry Mandarin 2024