[LINK] How Google is killing independent sites

[Craig Sanders]

On Fri, Feb 23, 2024 at 07:33:11PM +1100, Kim Holburn wrote:
> https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/
>
> How Google is killing independent sites like ours,And why you shouldn’t
> trust product recommendations from big media publishers ranking at the top
> of Google
>
>
> Fascinating article about how bad google search is becoming, as large
> publishers game or pay google for top spots.
>
>
> Too long and with too much detail to reproduce here, worth a read though.

Yeah, well, the net was corporatised and taken over by Wall Street and
marketing corporations decades ago (with all the fuss about "Big Tech",
everyone's ignoring the fact that "Big Tech" was taken over by "Big
Propaganda" way back in the 90s, long before they even had a chance to be
"Big" - the problems caused by "big tech" aren't new, they're the same
problems caused by big marketing accelerated and magnified by faster/better
comms tech).  They've been squeezing out everyone and everything else ever
since.

Once again, publicly funded advances are privatised and stolen to enrich and
empower private corporations.


For one small example, APNIC are about to null-route and steal my /24 network
addresses which I was given by AUNIC back in the early 90s.  But it's totally
OK because they had a vote (plutocratic, not democratic - more network blocks
= more subscription fees = way more votes) and invented a policy that says
it's completely legit.  This will take down my DNS and the domains I run, web,
git, mail, and other services I run for myself.  Only corporate services are
tolerated on the modern internet. DIY will be exterminated.

They've been trying to extort me into joining their organisation, accept
their terms and conditions (esp. for my IP addresses which are "historical
resources" **NOT** subject to their T&C) and pay their outrageous annual
membership fees ($575/year to refrain from deleting my whois records)...and
after much back and forth about how they have no right to do that, they're
saying "F You, we're taking them anyway. Sucks to be you" dressed up in
corporate bland-speak.  They'll be stealing my addresses at the end of this
month.



Anyway, more generally, I once (very naively and very stupidly) thought
that the net would be a force for good in the world.  I couldn't have
been more wrong - it's just enabled a totalitarian surveillance and
brainwashing nightmare, whether that's used in service of so-called
"communist" state-capitalist slave regimes, or for corporations and the
oligarchs who own them to reproduce the worst excesses of slave regimes in
allegedly democratic countries. Different plutocrats with different approaches
in how they control the serfs.

Back then, I imagined that there would be a billion alternatives for every
kind of service - both commercial and hobbyist. Something for everyone,
there's no shortage of "space" in the virtual world.  I guess I was stupid
enough to still have some small belief in free market ideology, or the
"marketplace of ideas" at least.  I'm thoroughly cured of that by now, I've
been watching the total enshittification of the net for decades.

craig