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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] 59 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

I was thinking just yesterday how insane I must sound to younger generations when I say that a decade ago you could just type into google a few half remembered words or phrases from a quote, book, song or movie etc and boom you'd have the answer. Now if you type the artist/author/person/characters exact name and the exact quote you're still more likely to get things selling you stuff only broadly related or random articles that have maximised SEO and taken top spot etc. But it's true.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I've had to start adding any random YouTube video I like to my favourites because there's a fucking solid chance that even searching the exact title will result in the algorithm refusing to find the video for me

And YouTube for some reason loves to serve slop with absolutely disgusting thumbnails for literally anything one can search kiryu-pain

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Relevant video about this: https://youtu.be/Z3dSkkEr-wk

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Its weird because for some things you can see the change still. I'm replaying an old pokemon game (platinum), and if I add platinum to the search for a bit of info, I get the old reliable sites: Bulbapedia, Serebii, Pokemondb. Specific questions route to gamefaqs, top answer is exactly what I need.

If I do this for the latest pokemon, i get gamesradar, game8, gamewith. I have to scroll past asinine bullshit that nobody was ever asking to begin with, and the info is months out of date or incomplete. Thankfully, the old sites still keep that info up and old heads search out the good sites specifically, so it always hits the top page .

Interesting to have the comparison right there and see directly how things have changed.

I honestly think the death of forum culture was a huge mistake. Reddit was so convenient woth its single login but wow is it not the place to build a subculture.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago

Discord has been awful for this as well. So much information is now unsearchable and walled off unless you just happen to be sitting in the right discord servers.

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

I think I’m the only one I know who uses text based social media.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I'm actually surprised some company hasn't created an SEO gaming trick to send their totally automated AI crafted neo-listical garbage to the top of the google results.

a few half remembered words or phrases from a quote, book, song or movie etc and boom you'd have the answer

1001 Best Movies!
1001 Best Songs!
1001 Best Books!
1001 Best Movies Quotes!
1001 Best Songs Quotes!
1001 Best Books Quotes!
1001 Best [Whatever]...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Yeah, uh...welcome to 2021...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

700 of the quotes are the same quote

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

It's worrying that people already forget/or are too young to remember how much better it was