
You Will Not Understand This - 1337p337
http://stanleylieber.com/2017/11/07/0/
======
jdietrich
>Search quality is no longer a core competency of Google, the Internet’s
premiere search engine. For example: Two people type the same search string,
each receives different results.

While I sympathise with the general anti-social-media stance, it's clear from
this phrase that OP does not understand the most basic elements of how
internet services function at scale.

 _Of course_ Google serves different results to different users, that's why
they're the market leader in search. The entire job of a search engine is to
return _relevant_ results. If I search for "takeaway pizza", I'm going to be
pretty annoyed if the results are generated using PageRank alone, with no
weighting for local relevance. If an American searches for "cricket", they
almost certainly mean the cellular provider or the insect rather than the
sport; if a British person makes the same search, the odds are reversed.

Google's "broken" email service came to dominate the market because it offered
a vastly better user experience than the realistic alternatives at the time -
Hotmail, AOL or some crappy POP3 server with no real spam filtering. The
things that people hate about Gmail are all rational, defensible design
decisions that serve the majority of users well.

The internet is a big place. Most statistics suggest that there are about
3.5bn people regularly using the internet. If you're optimising your service
for the median user, there will be millions of outliers who hate your service
with every fibre of their being. If you hate something, it might be
irredeemably awful, or it might just not be for you. It's all too rare that
people entertain the latter possibility.

~~~
hzay
Pretty sure OP gets the idea of personalization. Google's personalization is
like piling up chairs in order to reach the moon. It's nowhere near its
promise of reading the user's mind and helping him. Instead its present
implementation simply stops your world view from expanding in any direction,
by serving you the same stuff that you knew over and over again.

This is not personalization. This is a child's imitation of it. An
unpersonalized search engine is much better than this thing that simply hides
any interesting content from you in favor of showing you something related to
your previous search or to whatever nonsense your neighbors look up. Once upon
a time, the internet allowed you to escape your geography. No longer.

I'd much rather type "takeaway pizza chicago" than have google mind-read where
I want the pizza delivered. Search is not always about looking up something
already connected to you. It used to be about unfettered exploration.

~~~
Zarel
...I'm quite happy that Google stops my world view from expanding to include
Chicago restaurants when I'm looking for food in Seattle.

I'm also happy it doesn't include information about swifts the animal when I
search for Swift the programming language.

Even when it's about political stuff - I'm rather happy I don't get anti-vax
information when I'm searching for health information. I'm also happy Google
doesn't show me clickbait because it knows I'm not interested.

The idea of a filter bubble is definitely worth addressing, but I see no
reason why getting more information music notes when I'm trying to search for
information about C# is remotely beneficial. I can use Startpage or Incognito
if I want to avoid filter bubbling, but for the vast majority of searches I
do, relevance to me is useful.

But it's not best addressed through fear-mongering. Don't call it a child's
imitation just because you don't understand how it could be useful.

~~~
sillysaurus3
It's interesting how this entire thread was spawned and derailed by the
original essay being a bit too imprecise.

You all are taking this one argument out of context. He wasn't talking about
restaurants. But everyone here is.

 _Obviously_ restaurants should be personalized. But no one was saying they
shouldn't.

You have to take the argument in the essay and try to think of the most
persuasive possible interpretation. Is that "If I search for something in
Seattle, it would be stupid to return results in Chicago"? Probably not.

My webdev friend was excited that her personal site was being returned in her
search results whenever someone searched a project she had worked on. I
suggested that google was serving her personalized results. She searched in
incognito. Her site was still being returned. Pretty good, right? She was
getting exposure.

When we used a VPN, she was not in the results. Google knew that our searches
came from our IP address, and that searches from our IP should include her
site, since she mostly visited her site from our IP. Or something along those
lines. Either way, it was a misleading worldview.

I'm going to be harsh for a second, but I mean this lovingly: Stop being
naive. It's important for us to be skeptical of Google. They're the thousand-
pound gorilla, and the moment they do more than wink and nod at their "Don't
be evil" philosophy then we should start getting scared.

~~~
jdietrich
As far as I can tell, your essential complaint is that Google is sometimes
providing results that are _too relevant_. You're OK with Google doing some
amount of personalisation, but there's a line that they shouldn't cross.

How do you distinguish between "good" and "bad" personalisation at scale? How
do their algorithms know what should and shouldn't be personalised? Do humans
even agree on where to draw the line?

Google process literally trillions of searches per year, with each search
taking a few milliseconds. You're asking them to make a complex tradeoff
between providing completely irrelevant results for some queries and
excessively personalised results for others. I don't disagree that they could
probably do a better job of making that tradeoff, but I don't think that
they're being malicious or negligent either. I think that they're making
perfectly reasonable engineering decisions given the constraints of scale.

I don't think I am being naive. I don't blindly trust Google. I think that
there are many important questions to be asked about how major internet
companies collect, store and process our personal data. I think that America
urgently needs to pass legislation equivalent to our General Data Protection
Regulation. I think that there are significant concerns about the quality of
information that people see online, but I think that publishers play a far
greater role than Google in this respect.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation)

~~~
another-dave
There's definitely a scale I think — showing me local pizza places is great.
What about guessing my budget & ruling out places it thinks I won't book?
That's getting into a grey area & personally I'd find that
uncomfortable/undesirable.

What about applying it to non-transactional stuff like news? Should it
personalise results based on what it thinks I like?

Again with subjective/objective distinction — I know my friend will tailor
movie recommendations to me based on mutual interests / past discussions.

I expect though that a library catalogue would point me to the same info on
global warming no matter who I am.

The trouble at the moment is that Google is conflating these two types of
interaction & the user doesn't know which of their queries are personalised
(and to what extent / based on what criteria).

> How do their algorithms know what should and shouldn't be personalised? Do
> humans even agree on where to draw the line?

In my opinion, this is the crux of it — are we happy with algorithms filling
this blank unfettered, based on their own learning. If not, it's something
that we have to discuss and agree on, and then enforce / bring visibility to.

At present, Google aren't negligent (legally anyway, as we haven't set any
bar) and may not be acting maliciously. But if we think change is necessary
(at least for visibility of what's happening under the hood), we need to ask
the questions around these services to drive that change

~~~
nerdponx
What bothers me is the attempt at omniscience. Give me an option! Let me have
a checkbox for "tailor results to my location". Heck, turn it on by default.
Just give me the damn choice.

------
busterarm
This speaks to me on a visceral level. I was lucky enough to have started with
computers, BBS and the early days of the web very early in my childhood.
Hobbies and later a job supporting 70s-90s era tel co systems gave me a deep
understanding of fundamental technologies and protocols no one thinks or cares
about.

My hope is that me and others like me who are young enough to have long
careers (I'm in my early 30s) and have this knowledge can keep our feet on the
brakes when needed, for as long as possible. At least as far as systems that
people depend on.

Education is key here. Call it preaching, even. I'm constantly showing my
peers how to solve their problems more easily with old, standard tools that
fit into existing ecosystems.

~~~
doubleplusgood
Sure, but money talks louder.

------
jf
I'm relived that at least some people are leaving social media. "Gamification
of personal interaction" certainly degraded my health. Quitting Facebook "cold
turkey" is the best decision I've made this year.

~~~
fredley
I've quit, but not entirely. I just unfollowed _everyone_. My newsfeed is
blank, it doesn't even have ads amazingly. Without the feed, I still get the
upsides of Facebook (I can communicate with people on a platform they almost
all use, I can organise events easily), but (along with a suite of tracker-
blockers) remove almost all the downsides.

[https://blog.mamota.net/posts/solving-
facebook/](https://blog.mamota.net/posts/solving-facebook/)

~~~
gre
You can use News Feed Eradicator Chrome plugin and Facebook becomes a chat app
without having to unfollow everyone.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-
eradicat...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator-
for/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg?hl=en)

~~~
K2L8M11N2
You can visit [https://messenger.com](https://messenger.com) for just the
chat, without any extensions.

------
Semaphor
Can someone explain to me the facebook problem? I'm not talking about privacy
problems, just all the people saying everything is so much better for them
without it. Is it just me using it too weirdly?

I use messenger to chat with people (I'd love to use my jabber account more,
but everyone is either on FB, GTalk or WhatsApp), I read a few groups and use
events to keep things organized and I post sometimes, either forgetting about
it soon or if it strikes a point reading interesting discussions.

The vast majority of my friendlist are people I know IRL, some exceptions are
online friends I know via other channels. I also regularly delete people
(usually on their birthday, thanks for the reminder facebook) I'm not in
contact with anymore (well, and anyone who invites me to play a game more than
once, first time I tell them never to spam me again, 2nd time they are gone).

I'm just wondering how anything would improve for me without it?

~~~
adventured
In my experience, some of the nicest people I know also happen to have
extremely overwhelming political opinions & behaviors. They're extreme
partisans basically. Facebook has shown me a side of them that is very ugly.
Plus, we're now culturally living in a time of belligerent identity politics
combined with a sort of 'if you are not aggressively with us, you are against
us and evil'. It's an incredibly toxic environment.

For example (more recently), several of my most liberal friends (all extremely
nice people in person) have become venom spewing monsters, they rage non-stop,
pretty much every day, about Trump this and Trump that and so on and so forth.
They spew vindictive statements, they cheer about terrible things, they wish
for horrible things to happen for political reasons, they casually toss
insults, they threaten their other friends if they support Trump or if they
don't support the anti-Trump side enough.

That kind of stuff makes me really dislike Facebook. Everybody I know on the
network has had a similar experience over the last few years (and it really
got bad with the election). And that's before you get to the other political
stuff like intentional misinformation, lying, propaganda, fake news, etc. etc.
And... that's before you get to the personal drama that occasionally spills
over to FB. It's like six layers of hell frosted with brain-numbing spam from
22words and Bored Panda. So you start hiding posts by certain people, trying
to restrain the flow of sewage. Block this page, block that game, ignore that
notice, roll over a wall of 27 auto-playing spam videos, hide this post by
that friend, stop seeing posts by that person. Facebook has gotten so large
that it has become humanity, in my opinion, in all the good and bad ways that
implies.

~~~
Semaphor
Interesting, that sounds to me that you are seeing sides of your friends you
didn't want to know about? I don't have that problem, but if I would, I'd
either unfollow their posts or outright delete them (depending on if I
need/want to keep in contact with them on messenger).

~~~
adventured
Well for example with the rage party regarding Trump. I knew all the political
opinions of my friends that have lost their minds over that (so to speak). I'm
socially liberal, so their political _ideas_ mostly never bothered me (even
when I disagree with them). Their behavior on the other hand, is grotesque.
They've become what they proclaimed to dislike.

Almost all people behave differently under different social circumstances and
pressures. Facebook seems to bring out - unleash - the worst in some very nice
people. My observation is, as one would expect, they justify the bad behavior
by proclaiming that the venom spewing is justified by the nature of the
opponents they're attempting to counter. Means justified by the end goal.

It's said that online anonymity + forum = asshole behavior. I've come to
wonder if enough time being acclimated to a public social network like
Facebook, doesn't degrade the social niceties and manners that used to exist
among friends in the early days of MySpace and Facebook.

~~~
Semaphor
I mean finding out too much not by their opinions, but how they, at least
sometimes, behave.

> Means justified by the end goal.

Had a person like that once, they posted a picture with text (my personal
wisdom for those is to assume it's all wrong), I called them out on some
bullshit on it, they said "And? The company is still evil.". Unfollow
instantly solved that for me.

------
kome
Beautiful! I agree 100% with it.

Commercial web sucks, and what it's worse: it's boring and predictable. The
resistance has started. So many people share the same feelings, that's why
things like the tildeverse (tilde.club, tilde.town, neocities) do exist.

Revolution won't use JavaScript.

~~~
Micoloth
Thanks for the javascript part.

By the way, here on HN there's been plenty of post about "websites" been cool
lately. Please let's not confuse healthy individual control over the web with
purely subjective old technology nostalgia.

Tbh, 90s pure html was _UGLY_ lol.

~~~
clydethefrog
See also brutalistwebsites.com for combining the old and the new.

------
IanCal
> Search quality is no longer a core competency of Google, the Internet’s
> premiere search engine. For example: Two people type the same search string,
> each receives different results. Yes, I am aware that this is likewise no
> accident.

This is not an example of low search quality and can easily be the opposite.

If I search for ruby gems, I _probably_ want code. If someone else does, they
may want actual gems.

> The quality of ads displayed alongside various Google services has steadily
> devolved from semi-relevant to absolutely irrelevant at all times. Yes, I am
> aware that this is no accident.

What possible incentive would they have to serve up less relevant adverts?

> telepathic contact

Reading and writing != telepathic.

> Not a replacement for anything.

That's a bad thing?

~~~
nilved
> If I search for ruby gems, I probably want code. If someone else does, they
> may want actual gems.

So they search for "ruby gems" and you search for "ruby gems code." This nails
in OP's point:

> Insight: Google does not want you to know or remember. Anything, if at all
> possible.

~~~
IanCal
No, I search for "ruby gems".

What about that means I don't "know or remember anything"?

~~~
nilved
The second line of your post is answered by the first.

~~~
IanCal
I'm really not following. What is it that Google wants me to not know or
remember?

------
PeterStuer
I decided to quit Facebook for a month. That was September. October came
round, and I didn't go back.

I feel better. Facebook lets you communicate about the things you feel
passionate about. In a world gone crazy, this often means things that are
deeply disturbing, extremely wrong. Writing about these just re-tears the
wounds over and over.

Another thing: there are so many new dogmas and taboos that rational
discussion is hardly possible about fundamental things.

I do miss the distant contact with faraway friends, but think I am more sane
now.

~~~
taneq
It's possible to cull all of your 'Facebook friends' and only keep those
faraway friends, and use Facebook as a sort of IRC server with pictures. I
have a few friends who've done that.

~~~
orwin
Well, i installed an IRC (well, mattermost actually,a glorified IRC) where my
friends and i can discuss and keep everyone updated on latest news on tech and
games. Honestly it's better than facebook (we can send each other snippet of
code) and no one have to change the default setting to receive mails only when
something interesting happen.

------
13of40
"Fuck you forever for breaking e-mail for everyone in the world."

Did, uh, anyone else understand that bit?

~~~
busterarm
Gmail doesn't play well with plain text emails.

Even if you manually select Plain Text to send, it still reflows lines at 78
characters by manually inserting linebreaks and adds its own special
characters where it feels like. It also doesn't follow a handful of RFCs
specific to email. There is no workaround for the forced hard-wrapping of
lines in Plain Text. It will not let you use format=flowed either.

Plain Text mode has been obviously unusable for a long time, and the only
folks who ever really bothered to complain about it were kernel developers
(the mailing list requires plain text). Nobody else cares, but they should. Go
figure.

If you're using a 'modern' mail client, you don't notice this. If you're using
old, tried and true technology, the problems are plain as day.

Gmail broke email.

~~~
jon_richards
I get furious that it threads conversations automatically instead of with the
"reply-to" built into the email protocol.

It usually just threads emails with the same subject, but...

It sometimes doesn't thread emails with the same subject, but after someone
else has replied to the first one. You have to put "Re:" in the second email,
since the reply automatically added "Re:" and I guess that's too different for
gmail to accept, yet...

If you try to separate your emails by environment, a completely keyword in the
subject often isn't enough to stop the emails from threading.

Even if you filter and label your email by the subject lines, emails that get
threaded together get all labels.

You can't even give gmail feedback like "This email does not belong in this
thread". The only options are to accept their threading or turn off threading
entirely.

~~~
leephillips
Another option is to use a non-broken email client, like mutt.

~~~
jon_richards
I'm the one sending the emails, but lots of people receive them. Can't have
them all switch.

~~~
leephillips
It seemed as if your complaint about incorrect threading was about the client,
hence my suggestion to use a better client. Are you saying that if people
reply using the gmail client the reply-to header is wrong? Then yes, using
mutt will not fix this.

~~~
jon_richards
No, the issue is that I care about how my automated emails appear in _other
people 's_ clients. I'm like a web developer complaining about having to
support internet explorer.

------
trzmiel4
Here's a great article on social media and continuous distraction, looking at
these issues from a number of angles. I can't recommend this piece enough.

"There is growing concern that as well as addicting users, technology is
contributing toward so-called “continuous partial attention”, severely
limiting people’s ability to focus, and possibly lowering IQ."

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphon...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-
addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia)

------
ggm
I just exited. I didn't bleat about it. Maybe I should have ranted, but
somehow I did not judge that as necessary or appropriate. Either you "get it"
and don't need to be harangued, or you are embedded and a harangue is just
hater gotta hate.

So I just stopped. Three months ago. Not missing it.

------
jccalhoun
Someone needs to write a post about quitting reading posts about quitting
social networks

------
wybiral
My hope is that over time a large enough percentage of people will become
annoyed to the point of giving a fighting chance to alternative approaches and
platforms.

Or a stigma develops around being overly addicted to these platforms and their
use balances out some.

Right now it seems like people are pulling the "social reward lever" over and
over and the nature of the situation ensures that these platforms will try to
maximize that behavior. But I suspect that in the long run some form of
moderate usage and an appreciation for privacy and personal space will be
obvious.

------
toomanybeersies
Is there anyone who's moved overseas and quit Facebook, and benefited from it?

Because for me it's my primary link between my home country, where I live now,
and all my other international friends. Sure, I could use email to keep in
touch, but the problem with email is that it's an active communications
medium, unless you have a mailing list and email everyone what you're up to,
you don't keep up to date with what your friends are doing.

~~~
corford
Yep. Not sure how old you are, maybe it's an age thing? I'm in my early
thirties, live abroad and don't have an FB account.

I stay in touch with my friends and family back home with phone, sms,
whatsapp, skype, email and birthday/christmas cards in the post. Works fine.

~~~
PaulRobinson
You should be aware that WhatsApp _is_ Facebook, or at least is owned by them.

It'll become crap over time. Watch this space.

~~~
corford
Very aware MZ needs to find a way to get some ROI on his investment. If/when
it becomes shit, I'll drop it.

------
dylanz
This posts title, and the conversations in here, are a beautiful display of
irony :) That said, that "Panther Den" patch is awesome, and led me to a
description of it and some other pretty interesting defense/IT patches:
[http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/03files/Mission_Pa...](http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/03files/Mission_Patches_Their_Source_and_Meaning_002.html)

------
jamix
> Instagram

> I paid them for the app. Then they sold the app to Facebook. Now I see
> targeted ads and promoted posts.

Was Instagram really a paid app at some point? Couldn't find any references to
this.

~~~
skinnyfoetusboy
The first post from Wired[1] about Instagram refers to it as a free app. I
could see OP "misremembering" buying Instagram.

[1] [https://www.wired.com/2010/10/instagram-for-iphone-like-a-
lo...](https://www.wired.com/2010/10/instagram-for-iphone-like-a-lomo-twitter-
for-your-photos/)

~~~
jerrre
Maybe confused with Whatsapp? A used to be paid (is it now?) app bought by
Facebook?

------
ilvez
I'm just adding one drop to the ocean of social-network quitters. Last year
about the same time in November, I left Facebook for good. Life is so much
better without it. Less stress, less stupid media, less time spent mindless
scrolling.

Sometimes I feel left out, because FB is so overwhelmingly taken role of event
organizing etc, but I still hope that one day something breaks, people take
back their freedom and more natural independent communes appear.

------
phreack
Well I for one enjoy being on Tumblr. I curate the content I want to see by
choosing who I follow, and (hopefully permanently), its timeline is ordered
chronologically. The mobile clients are certainly terrible, and it's full of
hiccups, but it's the only social media I enjoy browsing these days.

------
zaarn
I haven't used Facebook in well over a decade and I'm not even 25 years old
yet. I don't think I missed out on much. (Though Facebook tried to get me back
in not too long ago by claiming somebody was hacking my account which I had
deleted... they also demanded a passport)

~~~
kome
Perhaps you didn't delete the account, but just deactivated.

~~~
zaarn
Either way, it's definitely deleted now. I don't have much use for that
website.

------
uladzislau
I think it all comes down to manipulation and usurping too much power over
public and private opinion, it's applicable to every mentioned company. If
you're not paying for the product - you're the product. If some people prefer
to being played, it's their choice.

------
autokad
> "Mandatory non-linear curation of user contributed content."

I always forget how much this bugs me. I get wall posts from friends saying
they are going out if anyone wants to join them, 24 hours after they post it.

------
dnautics
I think there is something to this nonlinear curation business... Maybe
there's room for a for-pay social network that treats attention as rivalrous
resource.

------
EGreg
Although I could semi understand that rant, I didn't understand the rest of
the guy's blog posts. At all. What is he going on about in that blog?

------
swlkr
We're definitely in a web hangover that will probably affect more people in
the coming years

------
lmaker
pure vitriol

------
trisimix
Preach

------
jochung
A+ on critiquing social media, but I have bad news for you: provincialism is a
normal facet of culture because humans are shallow.

The internet of old was also preselected, towards the people most likely to
have early access. It did not transcend borders, it was a new country. That
country has vanished, and we should mourn it, and figure out how to bring it
back. But that doesn't change the fact that real life is highly
compartmentalized, and people want and need it to be in order to function. As
real life bled into the virtual, this was inevitable.

One of the most instructional things is to move to a completely different
place and culture. People's experience of the last couple years will be
entirely different, because everything that's been reported has been
implicitly filtered by the question of "how does this affect our
tribe/region/nation". Famous personalities won't be known, landmark events
will be vague footnotes, and instead there's a whole parallel universe of
facts and people. Everything you thought you knew is wrong.

The internet is a poor fit for humanity. Good luck in getting away from that
fact without feeling alienated from everyone around you. They don't like
Cassandras and they don't like reality.

------
BucketSort
I disagree with mostly everything here, which surprises me since I'm usually
in line with most highly voted opinion pieces on here. I'd like to say
something in particular about Facebook. I maintain a strict rule of only being
friends with people I care about. It allows me to keep up with my family and
friends, discuss local community events and news, and keep up with the local
music scene. My belief is that a lot of people hate Facebook because they
don't really like the people in their life. It makes me happy seeing updates
from my community and family on a daily basis. Yes, Facebook is a tech company
with the intention of making money off its users, but that's the nature of the
game, I don't feel this is implicitly evil. It seems like people obsess about
the negative of everything these days. I choose to focus on the positive and
refuse to harbor such negative feelings as the author of this post does. The
world is both a horror and dream, your experience and perspective collapses
that duality. Be positive. Focus on the love, not hate. Bias the collapse
towards a dream.

~~~
joshcanhelp
N of 1 here but I am in the category of people who hate Facebook (been off for
a year) and very much miss the pictures, invites, and updates from people I
love. When I used FB, I unfollowed/unfriended folks I didn't care about,
really curated the experience as best as I could. I truly miss the
interactions with people.

But what I read over and over about the amount of data being collected,
combined with the very strong feeling that my worldview was being solidified
(I don't want news/articles tuned to my worldview, I want to be challenged)
and the desperation at which it tried to drag me back in, made it impossible
for me to use FB any longer. Twitter at the same time. Instagram took longer
but I'm off (again).

"I choose to focus on the positive and refuse to harbor such negative feeling"
\- I do too, can't speak to the author. Getting off social media because of
the negatives has brought a lot of positive to my life:

\- More in-person interactions \- More checking in over phone/text/email
directly (still electronic but one to one) \- More to talk about when I see
people (I don't already know every little thing and people are excited to
actually tell you about what happened) \- More time reading books and long
form articles \- More time working on things I care about \- Less news and
"news"

If social media brings positivity into your life, great, enjoy. But YMMV. This
is a bit like telling someone not to leave an abusive relationship because
they're only focusing on the negative and, hey, your relationship is great!

~~~
BucketSort
I'm not trying to advocate staying on these platforms if they don't work for
you. I'm mainly trying to say if it doesn't work for you, just move on. I'm
saying don't linger on past abusive relationships, find something better and
don't harbor the negativity from the past. I know what I said is very naive
and has plenty of holes in it, but I was taken aback by the negativity of this
post and responded with the inverse.

------
draw_down
Oh, I understand it just fine. But forgive me if I don’t find “fuck Google
because the internet used to be cooler” to be a particularly compelling
sentiment.

------
dingo_bat
> Instagram

> I paid them for the app.

What? IG is a paid app?

~~~
ladberg
It was before it was bought by Facebook.

~~~
fjsolwmv
When?

