Modern Web Woes - I'm mad at the internet

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While not perfect, Emplemon has put a video about the web on his second channel and it's really good. Much of what he says vindicates the reasons why forums like Kiwifarms are so important. If there was one way to describe this video, it would be "The internet has become bureaucratized for mass effiency." This is nothing new as it is the exact same proccess that has destroyed many countries in the west in which effeciency is prioritized over community and high-trust community.
 
retartedconspiratard said:
While not perfect, Emplemon has put a video about the web on his second channel and it's really good. Much of what he says vindicates the reasons why forums like Kiwifarms are so important. If there was one way to describe this video, it would be "The internet has become bureaucratized for mass effiency." This is nothing new as it is the exact same proccess that has destroyed many countries in the west in which effeciency is prioritized over community and high-trust community.
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So I've finally watched this spergfest (fucking hate the editing, I'd rather he just talk for 30 minutes and leave it as an audio file).

I disagree on his point of community, that you'd have to have small, dedicated communities for things to matter. In some part, sure, it's fun to have small communities about your weird train hobby or anime, but the most fun part of the internet, for me, at least, is the anonymity and privacy aspect of it. Sure, it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive, but both don't go hand-in-hand either.

Being able to say literally anything you want, without anyone knowing you, without you facing immediate consequences, is liberating. You can call someone a faggot in their (digital) face, and they can't do shit. You can call someone a faggot-munching, dick-sucking, liberal-arts-student, nigger-lipped, watermelon-eating, chicken-skin-sucking, cotton-plucking, split-eyed, bald, retarded chink without you having to worry if he's going to beat you up the next morning at your doorstep.

Along with this, people not having to know who you are means they'll listen more to your words than your appearance. You can be the smoothest, clearest, concisest talker in the world, but if you can't do it without your looks, no one's going to care. Words can hold more value than the perception of the speaker, and these words can even transcend websites, going beyond its little sub-community.

The bureaucratization of the internet basically ruined all of that. You will obey the words of the master, you will show your face, you will speak kindly, you will not be retarded, it's turning into your real life social life, which was the entire reason for you not to go outside and socialize. The internet still is a place to let your opinion, how fucking brainrottingly retarded it is, be heard, without some higher-up thinking it ought to be unsuitable for common etiquette. "You can't call that baby a faggot in his face", well yes I can on the interwebs, I can call that baby a faggot any time I like for that matter, faggot faggot faggot, 'the fuck's the baby going to do?

Niche communities were still that, niche. -- Your very odd clipped toenail fetish you already knew was weird, but then you saw a community of around three people all talking together on clippedtoenail.net, so you thought it was fun to see people alike, but you were still pretty sure you were pretty fucking weird. Move over 10 years and you hear that Reddit has a new r/clippedtoenailr34 subreddit, how queer. It seems to have around a thousand members and growing, how peculiar. Maybe this weird fetish isn't so odd. -- You start to think of your weird obsession as being commonplace. That there's actually a bunch of people that share your innate ability to get off to clipped toenails. It's not weird if so many people have it, right? Blablabla, transgender, lgbtq, "Can I put my dick in a toaster?", fuckdajewz, whatever. The weird is turning into the vocal minority and that minority is getting louder and louder. They don't see the disconnect between real life and the internet sphere anymore, even though, when you approach the average Joe on the street, they won't have a clipped toenail fetish.

You can clearly tell Emp doesn't venture much outside of his major websites, seeing as how he only barely mentioned that "websites like that exist" when talking about the 2000's webforums.
Well, here I am, talking on a 2000's webforum, with an active community that will read my entire post verbatim. Which is why I appreciate sites like this, people will ultimately read the entirety of this, most, at least, because it's a well-thought out, clear-written post that has some effort put into it. There's no rage-baiting, no view-farming, no censorship for monitization, no weird computer sperging this out. It's thoughts coming from another human being put into text form, contemplating where modern web attrocities stem from. -- Discord is quite literally the oppsite of this, people will ignore your posts if it's too long, not bother reading its entirety if it has too many difficult words in it, words spelled as if a monkey wrote them, just because there's just so many of them, and you'd only appreciate the nicest ones, the shortest ones and the visually appealing ones and not the ones going "Hi how r u today?" for the 20th time. It's internet bloat.

Speaking of which, the internet has become so massively fucking bloated beyond belief. While companies are always looking for ways to optimise costs and improve efficiency, they still seems absolutely brainrottingly retarded on the fact of optimising space. Places like Discord, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, whatever the hell, all let you just upload whatever the hell you want, at no cost, at a maximum size of 10MB-100MB (YouTube is the exception). This data just gets stored for who fucking knows how long or locally in Snapchats case.

But it's also definitely user-based. People post their stupid garbage as if it'll be deleted after an hour or so. -- Let me post my screenshot real quick, see (doesn't delete it) -- Let me take a quick picture of that (10MB jpeg file from iPhone in HDR) -- Oh yeah I should store that for later (ten copies already on the phone) -- I'm definitely at fault for this. I'd say my average upload size a file per day would average around 50MB. (I upload a lot of garbage). I'd waste around 18GB a year for purely garbage content, content that has already been uploaded, shared, seen, stored, etc. Internet traffic is full of garbage traffic. Storage is full of garbage traffic. People don't appreciate the bytes they have. People just buy the 1TB iPhone and be complicit with their garbage intake. Which is why I appreciate sites like 4chan with its strict filesize limits, every webm there is valuable, every webm under 8MB and under 6 minutes. There are ways of going past this but that's also what makes it fun. Having to compress that shitty file of yours into 6MB makes your video more worthwhile, instead of posting a three hour long livestream of PirateSoftware just sitting there building a chair, you'd have to really think about what to post, which is an art that is slowly being forgotten, because you can just post whatever garbage you have onto whatever platform you need, which is absolutely ballooning internet traffic.

This post alone would encompass 7.3kB in space, uncompressed, which is smaller than most video files or even some pictures, yet this post already gives out more "entertainment" (I doubt this entertained you) than some video's larger in size. This post doesn't cripple the server bandwidth of the webhost, nor the client, yet speaks volumes more.
 
The problem is that niches have expanded massively, replacing the "monoculture". This is almost entirely due to the internet. This explains why, for example, the movie industry produces endless, chucklefuck, shit-tier franchise films; monoculture no longer exists. The monocultural events of the 90s, which vary depending on your country where everyone from age 5-70 knew what you were referring to no longer exists.

The problem is that these niches, exceeding Dunbar's number of 150 connections, do not function as true niches (offering the kind of "closeness" of a fringe passion). Everyone feels part of a movement or community. Whether that involves new Star Wars content, Boogie2988, or identifying as a toaster, a monetisable avenue now exists for exploring one's most solipsistic self-expression.

People's fringe beliefs, those convictions distinguishing them from others, are held most strongly; consequently, these beliefs garner the most enthusiastic supporters. People feel far more than they think about these fringe niche beliefs. Moderns do not think. They only feel, and that is why they are so much stronger in fiction than in facts; why their novels are so much better than their newspapers.

As the Polynesian navigator can identify subtle differences in the currents, the shitlib can identify thousands of brands, thousands of celebrities, etc. They're perfectly adapted perfectly for consumption but have no idea how anything works.

As someone who, for my sins, has worked at many large tech companies, both in East and the West, let me give you an example of the economics of how "user-based" the internet is.

The Google Free User​


Let's consider a free consumer user with a Google Account using Gmail, Drive, Photos, etc.

Revenue per user per year:​


Google's average revenue per user (ARPU) varies by region (for the US, it's around $210). If we do back of the napkin math for the world, we get something like 3 billion global accounts (including Android devices.

In 2023, Alphabet's total revenue was $307.4B. So that gives us a neat $100 per user ARPU. But let's be conservative and say it's $50.

Storage cost per user per year:​


Google uses its own infrastructure so cost of storage is extremely low for them. They buy hard drives in bulk, have data centers with efficient energy use, etc.

  • - Hardware (drives, servers): ~$0.004/GB/year
  • - Operations (power, cooling, network): ~$0.004/GB/year
  • - Total: ~$0.008/GB/year before efficiency gains.
  • - With deduplication, compression, and tiered storage: ~$0.005/GB/year.

A user uploading 18 GB of "garbage" per year costs Google about 18 * 0.005 == $0.09. So the revenue from the user is $50, and the cost of storing their data is $0.09, leaving a margin of $49.91. Other costs exist, and other uses for your data also exist:

  1. - Data for Ads: Even garbage metadata improves ad targeting (e.g., photo timestamps/locations).
  2. - Lock-in: Your "garbage" creates switching costs. Migrating 20 GB of photos/docs is painful.
  3. - Upsell Path: Users hitting storage limits buy Google One ($20/year for 100 GB). That's pure profit.
  4. - Network Effects: More stored content = more reasons to use Google services daily.

I forget the precise correlation, but an almost formulaic equation exists whereby the more data a user stores on a service, the more they use that service. Basically, nobody uses YouTube as a video backup service without watching YouTube videos. So there are three stages you can think of:

  • - Initial storage (0–5 GB): User is lightly engaged; ad revenue maybe $10/year.
  • - Moderate storage (5–15 GB): User is habitually engaged; ad revenue climbs to $50/year.
  • - High storage (15+ GB): User is locked in; ad revenue plateaus, but conversion to paid storage becomes likely (pure profit).

You must also remember that for a company like Google, a ten-year user guarantees at least $500 in revenue. If, for any reason, you leave and use another service, such as DuckDuckGo, they lose that money. Therefore, despite the high margins, they are incentivised not only to acquire users but also to retain them. Even if the extra 18 GB only increases the user's LTV by $1, the return on investment is 455%. It is interesting that you use the language of garbage, because in all of Google's ad documentation, you will find the terminology "exhaust data" used ad nauseam; Google profits from the exhaust of your life, the shit that comes out the back.

Google's incentive structure is based on its stock price, which assumes a monopoly status. If they lose customers for any reason, particularly due to insufficient generosity, their stock price will halve. Should their user percentage drop below 90% (whether to ChatGPT, new search engine, or another competitor) the financial repercussions would be severe. They already generate substantial revenue; however, I would wager they would incur losses on heavy users to retain them if necessary.

For other companies (Google do not really acquire customers); a good customer acquisition cost ranges from $100 to $300. Therefore, one must consider storage costs with this in mind.

—

I would push back on the notion that companies seek genuine efficiency improvements from a development perspective. Moore's Law, which dictated CPU power doubling annually, ended in 2008; however, companies largely continue to use languages written before then and write code as if it remains in effect. They attempt to improve efficiency by offshoring work, but they have no intention of optimising software costs.

Controversial view: the software industry doesn’t exist beyond as an appendage to the hardware industry. It is equivalent to the airliner cabin upholstery industry within the aviation industry. I read a study stating that dedicating a significant sum, perhaps $20-50 million, to refactoring and rebuilding an old application, applying first principles, could drastically improve software performance by orders of magnitude. Instead, consultants and their bullshit merely transition you to another inefficient system.

But yeah, the industry is deeply fucked and will remain fucked for far longer than the AI problem.
 
All niche forums being dead or dying due to general purpose social media outlets.

Now you're stuck on a subreddit or a group if you want any interaction.
 
retartedconspiratard said:
While not perfect, Emplemon has put a video about the web on his second channel and it's really good. Much of what he says vindicates the reasons why forums like Kiwifarms are so important. If there was one way to describe this video, it would be "The internet has become bureaucratized for mass effiency." This is nothing new as it is the exact same proccess that has destroyed many countries in the west in which effeciency is prioritized over community and high-trust community.
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Recently caught it and it made lots of great points even if it's just a well-presented rehashing of grievances from aging websurfers.
I remember endlessly searching "free games" way back when and finding crazy shit like the pre-Runescape Jagex games, very shitty RPGs and multiplayer games I didn't understand but tried anyway and probably pissed off the regular users. You can't stumble upon weird shit anymore, which makes his comparison of Web 1.0 to flea markets very accurate in that even those(in metro areas) are filled with licensed resellers or businesses.
 
WhoBusTank69 said:
You can't stumble upon weird shit anymore
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That needs to be amended a bit. You can't stumble upon weird shit on shitty mainstream search engines anymore. You CAN stumble upon weird shit using smaller search engines like Wiby and Marginalia (the former especially) or on sites that essentially curate links to explore, like Viralwalk or Cloudhiker. There is significantly less weird shit on those than on the search engines of yesteryear though.
 
Merton J. Dingle said:
That needs to be amended a bit. You can't stumble upon weird shit on shitty mainstream search engines anymore. You CAN stumble upon weird shit using smaller search engines like Wiby and Marginalia (the former especially) or on sites that essentially curate links to explore, like Viralwalk or Cloudhiker. There is significantly less weird shit on those than on the search engines of yesteryear though.
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It needs to be amended even more. You can definitely find some fucking crazy shit by just working hard enough. If you're just going to be a faggot and only look up specific terms, not even scrolling past the second page, you'll end up with nothing.

I've discovered some weird-ass shit by just doing research and going deeper into things. Some of my favorite past-time things to do is look up things from my town and see what's been uploaded. I've found some fucking nutjobs, some weird old interviewers, some parkour video's from way-back, a fucking rap video about my fucking down, shit's nuts, and that's just from YouTube. You're doing yourself a disservice by not going far enough in the search results.

(DUTCH) I have no fucking clue what this is but I had it in my bookmarks
More stuff
Some artist's website
(DUTCH) Some actual fucking autism
A website found by watching old VSauce video's
Why the fuck is this in my bookmarks
Epstein e-mail parody
(DUTCH) Some Dutch maths website that's old as shit but I love it
 
What the fuck is this?

I have been seeing more and more websites like this recently, whole websites that may have once had some human involvement but are now 100% AI generated and find their way into my search results. This is ostensibly the website of the Nebraska Journal, which describes itself thusly:
In the quiet corridors of literary creation, Nebraska Journal stands as the literary architect of tales woven from the fabric of the Cornhusker State. Imbued with the essence of endless fields and boundless skies, Nebraska Journal's pen is dipped in the ink of prairie winds and murmurs of the Platte River. As the custodian of the stories that echo through the heartland, Nebraska Journal captures the spirit of Nebraska's diverse landscapes and vibrant communities.
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Every link on the site just loops back to the main page, there is no advertising on the site, it isn't selling anything, so why the fuck does it exist? This is an unsettling "through the looking glass" moment for me, obviously this is not the first time I have been faced with AI generated horseshit while looking for something useful but there is a really weird uncanny valley effect to this site, I just want to know why it exists and what purpose it serves.
 
Womble of Wimbledon said:
Every link on the site just loops back to the main page, there is no advertising on the site, it isn't selling anything, so why the fuck does it exist?
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It's an SEO farm. Every article I've looked at has at least two links to another site. The idea is to increase the ranking of those sites on Google and other search engines.
 
Recently I tried to reverse image search a picture with google lens (since they killed the regular reverse image search) and it would not work. "Unable to process this search. This search can't be processed due to content guidelines. Please try a different image or keywords." It doesn't matter whether safe search is on or not, it doesn't matter whether you're signed in or not, it will not search it no matter what. So you're completely fucked, it's the only reverse image search that actually worked. Tineye is useless, always has been and always will be, bing is as worthless as always, and yandex only pulls up images from Russian sites that don't even open. The only other option is some AI bullshit that you have to pay for.
 
Ice Fairy said:
Recently I tried to reverse image search a picture with google lens (since they killed the regular reverse image search) and it would not work. "Unable to process this search. This search can't be processed due to content guidelines. Please try a different image or keywords." It doesn't matter whether safe search is on or not, it doesn't matter whether you're signed in or not, it will not search it no matter what. So you're completely fucked, it's the only reverse image search that actually worked. Tineye is useless, always has been and always will be, bing is as worthless as always, and yandex only pulls up images from Russian sites that don't even open. The only other option is some AI bullshit that you have to pay for.
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I always use this
Or sometimes this
 
I am sure this has already been mentioned so I apologize in advance. Does anybody like me listen to ambience or just in general music with minimal lyrics while working/studying? On YouTube there have been a lot of good labels and playlist channels for specifically this and I have been listening to it for what has to be almost a decade now.

Recently in the past few months I am getting increasingly recommended videos with less than 30 views in a "ambient" or "fantasy" (I don't even listen to "fantasy") or whatever else is generic. The videos are always a one hour or longer playlists with droning generic instrumentals that are so forgettable that you literally cannot tell when the current song ends and the next one begins. You click on the channel and they are uploading a new "playlist" literally 4 times a week. Meanwhile actual playlist channels can go months without uploading because you know, they are human.

No song names, no artist, no external links on the channel, producing an inhuman amount of music that all sounds the same. Across hundreds of different channels with no video viewed more that 30 times and yet somehow these videos make up half of my recommendations at times? Yes the AI niggers have come to steal another comfy corner in my life that up until now has remained constant and unchanging all for that sweet sweet no effort revenue, I hold the deep desire to Minecraft that one pajeet making 1 shekel a month from this who surely makes up at least half of these channels.

Seriously has anyone else noticed that no matter how hard you try to avoid these recommendations they just never stop now? Has anyone noticed that a concerning proportion of users somehow think that this complete rape of human information and the Internet as a whole is somehow an okay way to behave as a society? How is everyone else coping? And please support total AI nigger death in every aspect of your life.
 
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