this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2025
655 points (98.7% liked)

Technology

75338 readers
4361 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

For months, Google has maintained that the web is “thriving,” AI isn’t tanking traffic, and its search engine is sending people to a wider variety of websites than ever. But in a court filing from last week, Google admitted that “the open web is already in rapid decline” (with regard to advertising, kinda-sorta)

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 267 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Yeah it is, and it's their fault that it is.

Google has no right to say the open web is in decline, when they're the main cause of it, this is basically them saying, 'Yeah, we won this stupid war that we started, screw you, peons,' this comes off like if MS broke WINE and then admitted no one uses desktop Linux anymore, it will have been their faults that hypothetical scenario happened, this is what Google saying the open web is in decline when it's largely their fault that it is comes off as to me.

[–] artifex@piefed.social 111 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Well they don't get all the credit. Oh, wait, they control how much of the market? Ok, nevermind.

(the DOJ says 91%. Google somehow claims it's only 10%, to which I literally LOL'd).

[–] jabjoe@feddit.uk 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

This is the nub of the issue. Markets need effective competition. Without it, you get fiefdoms and serfs, and shit products. Antitrust laws have been terrible for decades. Thanks to broken political thinking. Smash up the tech monopolies and not just tech will improve.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's not entirely their fault. The AI companies share a good portion of the blame too.

[–] artifex@piefed.social 47 points 1 week ago (4 children)

The AI companies are doing something different and possibly worse by stuffing all of the open sites full of AI slop and then re-training their models on said slop.

Wasn’t there some mythological figure that was doomed to eat its own excrement or something?

[–] negativenull@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] vividspecter@aussie.zone 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Google is an AI company, even if that's not all they are.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world 129 points 1 week ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 100 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I am so fucking exhausted of EVERYTHING in this society being treated like a statistic.

But what pisses me off even more, is when a gigantic corporation makes a bold claim, pretending they aren't a major contributor to what's happening in the said claim

[–] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Google commenting on the decline of open standards feels like a tobacco company commenting on cancer rates.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Meron35@lemmy.world 90 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Even browsing existing small to medium sized sites has become such a chore, with all these verifications and rate limiters as part of the anti AI scraper effort.

So many cloudflare verification checkboxes. So many Google sign ins. So many cross site cookies and tracking for even basic functionality.

Care about privacy and restrict browsing data even a little? Captcha hell.

[–] artifex@piefed.social 37 points 1 week ago

Then you get to load and execute 10MB of JavaScript while another 5MB of ad content loads and displays in the background. With the obligatory two dozen API calls to various trackers, counters, taggers, and “optimizers” in the background of course.

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 week ago

Glad someone else noticed this. I don’t care that the “small” web isn’t as extensive or as polished as the corporate web, but all the anti-scraper stuff and cookie pop-ups are the actual death. It’s horrible.

Off to gopher and Gemini I guess.

[–] T156@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Especially since discoverability has pretty much gone down the toilet, between SEO and spam sites.

You're not going to as easily find a new and interesting website, when the first few results are just computer generated regurgitated text, stuffed with ads by the gill.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Some mainstream websites and services are practically unusable when using a VPN, too. I'm glad I stopped using imgur years ago but I wish the rest of the world would catch up...

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] fuzzywombat@lemmy.world 82 points 1 week ago (5 children)

We really need to change the mindset about what the internet experience should be. I think everyone got too used to the idea of centralized services like Google search, Github, Discord, Twitter, reddit, and etc. and that didn't turn out well. We need to go back to federated protocol based system instead. Let's go back to the decentralized federated architecture of email, web, irc where no one corporate entity is the sole owner of said service. I think Lemmy and Mastodon are good start but we have to start replace things like Google search, Github, and Discord with decentralized counterparts. We have to learn from our past mistakes and start reconstructing a better internet infrastructure one piece at a time. It will take lot of effort and patience but it's really the only way out of the mess we put ourselves into by being addicted to simplicity of centralized corporate controlled systems.

[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world 41 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Prior to GitHub, everyone just hosted their own Git repositories. The nature of Git is pretty decentralised. And Linux kernel development still uses old-fashioned mailing lists for development co-ordination, rather than something like GitHub. I have heard before someone say the difference between Git and GitHub is similar to the difference between porn and Pornhub.

Prior to Discord, there was IRC.

[–] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 18 points 1 week ago (4 children)

IRC is still there. The user numbers just aren't that great anymore 😒 I fucking hate discord and what it did and how it took over. And also, of course, murican.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 week ago (5 children)

This makes me think that a big part of the solution is some sort of very low barrier to entry guide or product for self-hosting. Like something even a non-technical person can do. Imagine if it became the norm to have a little always-on device that serves up your personal website, instead of social media accounts...

[–] eldebryn@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (7 children)

We need a startup to just make and try to sorta standardize a mini pc product pre-installed with a proxmox-like setup with an easy web interface and self-hosted solutions pre installed. 5-10 apps for main internet service needs like email, social media, content hosting/publishing and personal media libraries.

Give it a cute name like "Web-Pal", keep it open and Customizable for powerusers, watch the internet become a better place while you're the household name for devices that are as essential as a router.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] netuno@lemmy.cif.su 13 points 1 week ago

the difference between Git and GitHub is similar to the difference between porn and Pornhub.

🤣

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 81 points 1 week ago (33 children)

I miss the old internet. Thanks capitalists

[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (32 replies)
[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 80 points 1 week ago

Google is so goddamn at fault for this it's not even funny.

[–] shutz@lemmy.ca 42 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They admitted, with obvious glee

[–] artifex@piefed.social 24 points 1 week ago

You can tell they’re scared of it because they immediately tried to retract/clarify the statement.

Though IDK why they’d care this point since the Supreme Court already declared Google a monopoly and turned around and said they weren’t abusive enough and gave them no punishment.

[–] goatinspace@feddit.org 39 points 1 week ago
[–] vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 32 points 1 week ago

That's a weird way to spell "celebrates".

[–] lanky_ginger@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago

Fucking corporate double-speak...

[–] netuno@lemmy.cif.su 24 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The problem for years has been good stuff being drowned in slop.

It's not going to be fixed.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago

By their hands

[–] frenchfryenjoyer@lemmings.world 24 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Not to mention a lot of site traffic is now getting tanked by the UK blocking everything because of the "online safety act" that's actually anything but (source)

Most recently my friend couldn't access a Reddit post about a dental issue of all things because it got marked as NSFW and it asked for her face or ID (can't remember) so she could see it (I ended up making her download TOR)

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

More like Google/Alphabet is doing what it can to close up the net, and hopes that openness on the net goes into decline.

They already squeezed the open net for all its worth.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 week ago

But in a court filing

Why is this legal? It's always like this with large companies. " Yeah we were just lying to everyone all the time, but this filing for court is the absolute truth!"

It's the same as Fox News which always says they're fair and balanced news and they bring the news nobody else does, but in a court filing... They suddenly claim that no reasonable person would believe them to be a real news organization... Uuuh huh...

Any court should dismiss this filing immediately and punish them for submitting a false filing, or continuously lying outside the courts. This sort of crap should be inadmissible.

[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 week ago

They denied it until the instant doing so was inconvenient to them.

[–] BenchpressMuyDebil@szmer.info 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Misleading title.

By the way, if you still want to use google's search engine but want to avoid the AI stuff, see https://udm14.com/ or just add &udm=14 to your search query

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If the internet were a forest, Google opines the forest is in such poor shape while Google uses and sells chain saws.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] snoons@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 week ago

Google concern trolls the open web

[–] jaemo@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Bye bye internet. Hello splinternet.

[–] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Essentially.

The fediverse, small-web, ubb-boards, xda, and parts of the darkweb, as well as places like 4chan all belong to a sort-of bound community.

Facebook, Google, Tiktok, Instagram etc make up the mainsteam internet with Tumblr and Reddit on the sidelines.

It's getting worse, it even trickles down to software choices and piracy. Choose Linux and trust the community, run Kodi and fight constant update breakage on Youtube and corporate streaming solutions when Jellyfin and samba shares just work?

At what point does their world of influence become seemingly worse than ours by default and everyone just ignores them? Will the giants allow themselves to be ignored? I believe they will eventually make self-sufficiency impossible. Somehow, some day, you won't have any of these choices and everyone will be nickle and dimed to death until the entire internet is an unskippable full-screen ad.

From some mobile-only average working Joes out there, that's all it already is.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Ok, well our backup is safe yeah ? So, good, it should burn down to the fucking ground,
Topple DNS tyranny, blow up the CDNs, let datacenters become dilapidated, let the 101 rooms go unstaffed

After the fire maybe something not quite as malevolent will grow in the ashes

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] MattTheProgrammer@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

There will be such a thing that arises as a "grey net" I think. Not the dark web, but also not mainstream internet.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Leopards eating everyone's face these days.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 week ago

s/admits/boasts/

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

They are making it happen.

load more comments
view more: next ›