effort

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The internet has become nearly impossible to use for information. (hexbear.net)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I need to write a zoology paper on bugs

All search results are for pest control businesses or are AI generated garbage that have wrong information.

Yes, the internet always had problems, but I cannot stress how much worse it has gotten for information over the last ten years.

I used to be able to search a species and get scientific papers or at least articles that referenced scientific papers in the results. None of that anymore. All search results are for someone trying to sell you something, and articles are regurgitated AI monstrosities that waffle on with no real information and no references. If your search even manages to direct you to news articles every news site will have identical, poorly written tabloid hidden behind a paywall. All of it useless for even the most basic academic research.

I literally can't do my job if every search result for species identification is behind a paywall, or an AI generated image of a bug that doesn't really exist.

It's no longer the information age. But not because of Trumpism and other things liberal whine about, it's because capitalism has hollowed out the internet into a husk of what it was meant to be.

I literally had to go and buy an expensive field guide from a museum to finish this paper. I haven't had to do that before.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Related problem: the internet has gotten so fucking atomized. There could be some cool as fuck website out there, which I will never know about.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

How I feel about gardening information on the web. Many techniques and style of grafts out there, online communities, and even shops that I know are out there but that I'll never find.

I recently found a site for heirloom roses and one for wild flower seed mixes