%%excerpt%% Reddit has commenced its assault on search engines, blocking those that don’t have a commercial relationship with the company, like Google.
Yes. They are making other search engines less useful through what is functionally an exclusivity deal. They are also relying on Reddit to function as useful results since they ruined google search over the past few years. They’ve enshittified their own product and now they are making it everyone else’s problem.
This is bad for anyone who thinks we should be able to search the internet without being locked into google. The door this opens is awful as well - what happens as this practice expands and you suddenly need multiple search engines to find things online? What happens when a search engine cuts a deal with news outlets?
It obviously should, but it won’t, because the US is a capitalist dictatorship masquerading as a democracy. The oligarchy own the government, and the regulators.
Is there a downside? I’m confused.
Yes. They are making other search engines less useful through what is functionally an exclusivity deal. They are also relying on Reddit to function as useful results since they ruined google search over the past few years. They’ve enshittified their own product and now they are making it everyone else’s problem.
This is bad for anyone who thinks we should be able to search the internet without being locked into google. The door this opens is awful as well - what happens as this practice expands and you suddenly need multiple search engines to find things online? What happens when a search engine cuts a deal with news outlets?
What a mess.
I’m excited for this to start triggering anti-trust legislation
It obviously should, but it won’t, because the US is a capitalist dictatorship masquerading as a democracy. The oligarchy own the government, and the regulators.
But other search engines like Bing are also American capitalist corporations and they don’t want this I’m sure.
letthemfight.gif
“Would you like to expand your search to include human-created content? Upgrade to Google Advanced* to unlock the power of the human web!”
“sorry bro, I can’t search that website—it’s not covered by my subscription package”
Google already signaled they want to charge for their trash AI search.