Google Relies on People Not Perceiving a Walled Garden
August 3, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I want to keep this brief. I have been, largely without effect, explaining Google’s foundational idea of a walled garden people will perceive as the digital world. Once in the garden, why leave?
A representation of the Hotel California’s walled garden. Why bother to leave? The walled garden is the entire digital world. I wish MidJourney would have included the neon sign spelling out “Hotel California” or “Googleplex.” But no, no, no. Smart software has guard rails.
Today (August 3, 2023), I want to point to two different write ups which explain bafflement at what Google is doing.
The first is a brief item from Mastodon labeled (I think) “A List of Recent Hostile Moves by Google’s Chrome Team.” The write up points out that Google’s attempt to become the gatekeeper for content. Another is content blocking. And action to undermine an image format. Hacker News presents several hundred comments which say to me, “Why is Google doing this? Google is supposed to be a good company.” Imagine. Read these comments at this link. Amazing, at least to me!
The second item is from a lawyer. The article is “Google’s Plan To DRM The Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For.” Please, read the write up yourself. What’s remarkable is the point of view expressed in this phrase “everything Google once stood for.” Lawyers are a fascinating branch of professional advice givers. I am fearful of this type of thinking; therefore, I try to stay as far away from attorneys as I can.
Let’s step back.
In one of my monographs about Google (research funded by commercial enterprises) which contain some of the information my clients did not deep sensitive, I depicted Sergey Brin as a magician with fire in his hand. From the beginning of Google’s monetization via advertising misdirection and keeping the audience amazed were precepts of the company. Today’s Google is essentially running what is now a 25 year old game plan. Why not? Advertising “inspired” by Yahoo-GoTo-Overture’s pay-for-traffic model generates almost 70 percent of the company’s revenue. With advertising under pressure, the Google has to amp up its controls. Those relevant ads displayed to me for feminine-centric products reflect the efficacy of the precision ad matching, right?
Think about the walled garden metaphor. Think about the magician analogy. Now think about what Google will do to extend and influence the world around it. Exciting for young people who view the world through eyes which have only seen what the walled garden offers. If TikTok goes away, Google has its version with influencers and product placements. What’s not to like about Google News, Gmail, or Android? Most people find nothing untoward, and altering those perceptions may be difficult.
The long view is helpful when one extends control a free service at a time. And relevance of Google’s search results? The results are relevant because the objective is ad revenue and messaging on Googley things. An insect in the walled garden does not know much about other gardens and definitely nothing about an alternative.
Stephen E Arnold, August 3, 2023
Google: When Wizards Cannot Talk to One Another
August 1, 2023
Note: Dinobaby here: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid. Services are now ejecting my cute little dinosaur gif. Like my posts related to the Dark Web, the MidJourney art appears to offend someone’s sensibilities in the datasphere. If I were not 78, I might look into these interesting actions. But I am and I don’t really care.
Google is in the vanguard of modern management methods. As a dinobaby, I thought that employees who disagree would talk about the issue and work out a solution. Perhaps it would be a test of Option A and Option B? Maybe a small working group would dive into a tough technical point and generate a list of talking points for further discussion, testing, and possibly an opinion from a consulting firm?
How would my old-fashioned approach work?
One youthful wizard says, “Your method is not in line with the one we have selected.” The other youthful wizard replies, “Have you tested both and logged the data?” The very serious wizard with the bigger salary responds, “That’s not necessary. Your method is not in line with the one we have selected. By the way, you may find your future elsewhere.” Thanks MidJourney. You have nailed the inability of certain smart people to discuss without demeaning another. Has this happened to you MidJourney?
The answer is, “Are you crazy?”
Navigate to “Google Fails to Get AI Engineer Lawsuit Claiming Wrongful Termination Thrown Out.” As I understand the news report, Google allegedly fired a person who wrote a paper allegedly disagreeing with another Google paper. This, if true, reminded me of the Stochastic Parrot dust up which made Googler Dr. Timnit Gebru a folk hero among some. She is finding her future elsewhere now.
Navigate to the cited article to get more details.
Several points:
- Google appears to be unable to resolve internal discussions without creating PR instead of technical progress.
- The management methods strike me as illogical. I recall discussions with Googlers about the importance of logic, and it is becoming clear to me that Google logic follows it own rules. (Perhaps Google people managers should hire people that can thrive within Google logic?)
- The recourse to the legal system to resolve which may be a technical matter is intellectually satisfying. I am confident that judges, legal eagles, expert witnesses are fully versed in chip engineering for complex and possibly proprietary methods. Have Google people management personnel considered just hiring such multi-faceted legal brains and eliminating wrong-thinking engineers?
Net net: A big time “real” news reporter objected to my use of the phrase “high school management methods.” Okay, perhaps “adolescent management methods” or “adolescent thought processes” are more felicitous phrases. But not for me. These fascinating Google management methods which generate news and legal precedents may render it unnecessary for the firm to use such words as “trust,” “user experience,” and other glittering generalities.
The reality is that cooperative resolution seems to be a facet of quantum supremacy that this dinobaby does not understand.
Stephen E Arnold, August 1, 2023
Impossible. A Google AI Advocates for Plagiarism? Impossible.
August 1, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Google became the world’s leading search engine because of its quality results. Alphabet Inc. might lose that title with its new “Search Generative Experience” (SGE) that uses an AI algorithm to copies and paste text from across the Internet and claims them as original content. SGE plagiarizes its information and even worse it cites false information. The article “Plagiarism Engine: Google’s Content-Swiping AI Could Break The Internet” posted on Tom’s Hardware examines SGE’s beta phase.
SGE’s search results page contains advice and answers from Google that occupy the entire first screen, requiring users to scroll to find organic search results. Google explains that they are experimenting with SGE and it will change before it’s deployed. Google claims it wants to put Web sites front and center, but their location in SGE (three blocks to the right of search results) will get few clicks and these are not always the best resources.
SGE attempts to answer search results with cobbled together text chunks that appear at the top of results pages. These text chunks are a mess:
“Even worse, the answers in Google’s SGE boxes are frequently plagiarized, often word-for-word, from the related links. Depending on what you search for, you may find a paragraph taken from just one source or get a whole bunch of sentences and factoids from different articles mashed together into a plagiarism stew. … It’s pretty easy to find sources that back up your claims when your claims are word-for-word copied from those sources. While the bot could do a better job of laundering its plagiarism, it’s inevitable that the response would come from some human’s work. No matter how advanced LLMs get, they will never be the primary source of facts or advice and can only repurpose what people have done.”
Google’s SGE has many negative implications. It touts false information as the truth. The average Internet user trusts Google to promote factual information and they do not investigate beyond the first search page. This will cause individual and societal harm, ranging from incorrect medical information to promoting conspiracy theories.
Google is purposely doing this an anti-competition practice. Google wants users to stay on its Web sites as long as possible. The implications of SGE as an all-encompassing search experience and information source support that practice.
Google and SGE steal people’s original work that irrevocably harms the publishing, art, and media industries. Media companies are already suing Google and other AI-based companies to protect their original content. The best way to stop Google is for an ultimate team-up between media companies:
“Companies could band together, through trade associations, to demand that Google respect intellectual property and not take actions that would destroy the open web as we know it. Readers can help by either scrolling past the company’s SGE to click on organic results or switching to a different search engine. Bing has shown a better way to incorporate AI, making its chatbot the non-default option and citing every piece of information it uses with a specific link back…”
If media companies teamed together for a class action lawsuit it could stop Google’s SGE bad practices and could even breakup Google’s monopoly.
Whitney Grace, August 1, 2023
Google: Running the Same Old Game Plan
July 31, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Google has been running the same old game plan since the early 2000s. But some experts are unaware of its simplicity. In the period from 2002 to 2004, I did a number of reports for my commercial clients about Google. In 2004, I recycled some of the research and analysis into The Google Legacy. The thesis of the monograph, published in England by the now defunct Infonortics Ltd. explained the infrastructure for search was enhanced to provide an alternative to commercial software for personal, business, and government use. The idea that a search-and-retrieval system based on precedent technology and funded in part by the National Science Foundation with a patent assigned to Stanford University could become Googzilla was a difficult idea to swallow. One of the investment banks who paid for our research got the message even though others did not. I wonder if that one group at the then world’s largest software company remembers my lecture about the threat Google posed to a certain suite of software applications? Probably not. The 20 somethings and the few suits at the lecture looked like kindergarteners waiting for recess.
I followed up The Google Legacy with Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator. This monograph was again based on proprietary research done for my commercial clients. I recycled some of the information, scrubbing that which was deemed inappropriate for anyone to buy for a few British pounds. In that work, I rather methodically explained that Google’s patent documents provided useful information about why the mere Web search engine was investing in some what seemed like odd-ball technologies like software janitors. I reworked one diagram to show how the Google infrastructure operated like a prison cell or walled garden. The idea is that once one is in, one may have to work to get past the gatekeeper to get out. I know the image from a book does not translate to a blog post, but, truth be told, I am disinclined to recreate art. At age 78, it is often difficult to figure out why smart drawing tools are doing what they want, not what I want.
Here’s the diagram:
The prison cell or walled garden (2006) from Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator, published by Infonortics Ltd., 2006. And for any copyright trolls out there, I created the illustration 20 years ago, not Alamy and not Getty and no reputable publisher.
Three observations about the diagram are: [a] The box, prison cell, or walled garden contains entities, [b] once “in” there is a way out but the exit is via Google intermediated, defined, and controlled methods, and [c] anything in the walled garden perceives that the prison cell is the outside world. The idea obviously is for Google to become the digital world which people will perceive as the Internet.
I thought about my decades old research when I read “Google Tries to Defend Its Web Environment Integrity as Critics Slam It as Dangerous.” The write up explains that Google wants to make online activity better. In the comments to the article, several people point out that Google is using jargon and fuzzy misleading language to hide its actual intentions with the WEI.
The critics and the write up miss the point entirely: Look at the diagram. WEI, like the AMP initiative, is another method added to existing methods for Google to extend its hegemony over online activity. The patent, implement, and explain approach drags out over years. Attention spans, even for academics who make up data like the president of Stanford University, are not interested in anything other than personal goal achievement. Finding out something visible for years is difficult. When some interesting factoid is discovered, few accept it. Google has a great brand, and it cares about user experience and the other fog the firm generates.
MidJourney created this nice image of a Googler preparing for a presentation to the senior management of Google in 2001. In that presentation, the wizard was outlining Google’s fundamental strategy: Fake left, go right. The slogan for the company, based on my research, keep them fooled. Looking the wrong way is the basic rule of being a successful Googler, strategist, or magician.
Will Google WEI win? It does not matter because Google will just whip up another acronym, toss some verbal froth around, and move forward. What is interesting to me is Google’s success. Points I have noted over the years are:
- Kindergarten colors, Google mouse pads, and talking like General Electric once did about “bringing good things” continues to work
- Google’s dominance is not just accepted, changing or blocking anything Google wants to do is sacrilegious. It has become a sacred digital cow
- The inability of regulators to see Google as it is remains a constant, like Google’s advertising revenue
- Certain government agencies could not perform their work if Google were impeded in any significant way. No, I will not elaborate on this observation in a public blog post. Don’t even ask. I may make a comment in my keynote at the Massachusetts / New York Association of Crime Analysts’ conference in early October 2023. If you can’t get in, you are out of luck getting information on Point Four.
Net net: Fire up your Chrome browser. Look for reality in the Google search results. Turn cartwheels to comply with Google’s requirements. Pay money for traffic via Google advertising. Learn how to create good blog posts from Google search engine optimization experts. Use Google Maps. Put your email in Gmail. Do the Google thing. Then ask yourself, “How do I know if the information provided by Google is “real”? Just don’t get curious about synthetic data for Google smart software. Predictions about Big Brother are wrong. Google, not the government, is the digital parent whom you embraced after a good “Backrub.” Why change from high school science thought processes? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2023
Google, You Are Constantly Surprising: Planned Obsolescence, Allegations of IP Impropriety, and Gardening Leave
July 25, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1-54.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I find Google to be an interesting company, possibly more intriguing than the tweeter X outfit. As I zipped through my newsfeed this morning while dutifully riding the exercise machine, I noticed three stories. Each provides a glimpse of the excitement that Google engenders. Let me share these items with you because I am not sure each will get the boost from the tweeter X outfit.
Google is in the news and causing consternation in the mind of this MidJourney creation. . At least one Google advocate finds the information shocking. Imagine, planned obsolescence, alleged theft of intellectual property, and sending a Googler with a 13 year work history home to “garden.”
The first story comes from Oakland, California. California is a bastion of good living and clear thinking. “Thousands of Chromebooks Are ‘Expiring,’ Forcing Schools to Toss Them Out” explains that Google has designed obsolescence into Chromebooks used in schools. Why? one may ask. Here’s the answer:
Google told OUSD [Oakland Unified School District’ the baked-in death dates are necessary for security and compatibility purposes. As Google continues to iterate on its Chromebook software, older devices supposedly can’t handle the updates.
Yes, security, compatibility, and the march of Googleware. My take is that green talk is PR. The reality is landfill.
The second story is from the Android Authority online news service. One would expect good news or semi-happy information about my beloved Google. But, alas, the story “Google Ordered to Pay $339M for stealing the very idea of Chromecast.” The operative word is “stealing.” Wow. The Google? The write up states:
Google opposed the complaint, arguing that the patents are “hardly foundational and do not cover every method of selecting content on a personal device and watching it on another screen.”
Yep, “hardly,” but stealing. That’s quite an allegation. It begs the question, “Are there any other Google actions which have suggested similar behavior; for example, an architecture-related method, an online advertising process, or alleged misuse of intellectual property? Oh, my.
The third story is a personnel matter. Google has a highly refined human resource methodology. “Google’s Indian-Origin Director of News Laid Off after 13 Years: In Privileged Position” reveals as actual factual:
Google has sent Chinnappa on a “gardening leave…
Ah, ha, Google is taking steps to further its green agenda. I wonder if the “Indian origin Xoogler” will dig a hole and fill it with Chromebooks from the Oakland school district.
Amazing, beloved Google. Amazing.
Stephen E Arnold, July 25, 2023
Google the Great Brings AI to Message Searches
July 25, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1-49.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
AI is infiltrating Gmail users’ inboxes. Android Police promises, “Gmail’s New Machine Learning Models Will Improve your Search Results.” Writer Chethan Rao points out this rollout follows June’s announcement of the Help me write feature, which deploys an algorithm to compose one’s emails. He describes the new search tool:
“The most relevant search results are listed under a section called Top results after this update. The rest of them will be listed beneath All results in mail, with these being filtered based on recency, according to the Workspace Blog. Google says this would let people find what they’re looking for ‘with less effort.’ Expanding on the methodology a little bit, the company said (via 9to5Google) its machine learning models will take into account the search term itself, in addition to the most recent emails and ‘other relevant factors’ to pull up the results best suited for the user. The functionality has just begun rolling out this Friday [May 02, 2023], so it could take a couple of weeks before making it to all Workspace or personal Google account holders. Luckily, there are no toggles to enable this feature, meaning it will be automatically enabled when it reaches your device.”
“Other relevant factors.” Very transparent. Kind of them to eliminate the pesky element of choice here. We hope the system works better that Gmail’s recent blue checkmark system (how original), which purported to mark senders one can trust but ended up doing the opposite.
Buckle up. AI will be helping you in every Googley way.
Cynthia Murrell, July 25, 2023
And Now Here Is Sergey… He Has Returned
July 24, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1-44.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I am tempted to ask one of the art generators to pump out an image of the Terminator approaching the executive building on Shoreline Drive. But I won’t. I also thought of an image of Clint Eastwood, playing the role of the Man with No Name, wearing a ratty horse blanket to cover his big weapon. But I won’t. I thought of Tom Brady joining the Tampa Bay football team wearing a grin and the full Monte baller outfit. But I won’t. Assorted religious images flitted through my mind, but I knew that if I entered a proper name for the ace Googler and identified a religious figure, MidJourney would demand that I interact with a “higher AI.” I follow the rules, even wonky ones.
The gun fighter strides into the developer facility and says, “Drop them-thar Foosball handles. We are going to make that smart software jump though hoops. One of the champion Foosballers sighs, “Welp. Excuse me. I have to call my mom and dad. I feel nauseous.” MidJourney provided the illustration for this dramatic scene. Ride ‘em, code wrangler.
I will simply point to “Sergey Brin Is Back in the Trenches at Google.” The sub-title to the real news story is:
Co-founder is working alongside AI researchers at tech giant’s headquarters, aiding efforts to build powerful Gemini system.
I love the word “powerful.” Titan-esque, charged with meaning, and pumped up as the theme from Rocky plays softly in the background, syncopated with the sound of clicky keyboards.
Let’s think about what the return to Google means?
- The existing senor management team are out of ideas. Microsoft stumbles forward, revealing ways to monetize good enough smart software. With hammers from Facebook and OpenAI, the company is going to pound hard for subscription upsell revenue. Big companies will buy… Why? Because … Microsoft.
- Mr. Brin is a master mechanic. And the new super smart big brain artificial intelligence unit (which is working like a well oiled Ferrari with two miles on the clock) is due for an oil change, new belts, and a couple of electronic sensors once the new owner get the vehicle to his or her domicile. Ferrari knows how to bill for service, even if the zippy machine does not run like a five year old Toyota Tundra.
- Mr. Brin knows how to take disparate items and glue them together. He and his sidekick did it with Web search, adding such me-too innovations as GoTo, Overture, Yahoo-inspired online pay-to-play ideas. Google’s brilliant Bard needs this type of bolt ons. Mr. Brin knows bolt ons. Clever, right?
Are these three items sufficiently umbrella-like to cover the domain of possibilities? Of course not. My personal view is that item one, management’s inability to hit a three point shot, let alone a slam dunk over Sam AI-Man, requires the 2023 equivalent of asking Mom and Dad to help. Some college students have resorted to this approach to make rent, bail, or buy food.
The return is not yet like Mr. Terminator’s, Mr. Man-with-No-Name’s, or Mr. Brady’s. We have something new. A technology giant with billions in revenue struggling to get its big tractor out of a muddy field. How does one get the Google going?
“Dad, hey it’s me. I need some help.”
Stephen E Arnold, July 24, 2023
Silicon Valley and Its Busy, Busy Beavers
July 21, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1-43.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Several stories caught my attention. These are:
- The story “Google Pitches AI to Newsrooms As Tool to Help Reporters Write News Stories.” The main idea is that the “test” will allow newspaper publishers to become more efficient.
- The story “YouTube Premium Price Increase 2023: Users Calls for Lawsuit” explains that to improve the experience, Google will raise its price for YouTube Premium.” Was that service positioned as fixed price?
- The story “Google Gives a Peek at What a Quantum Computer Can Do” resurfaces the quantum supremacy assertion. Like high school hot rodders, Google suggests that its hardware is the most powerful, fastest, and slickest one in the Quantum School for Mavens.
- The story “Meta, Google, and OpenAI Promise the White House They’ll Develop AI Responsibly” reports that Google and other big tech outfits cross their hearts and hope to die that they will not act in an untoward manner.
Google’s busy beavers have been active: AI, pricing tactics, quantum goodness, and team building. Thanks, MidJourney but you left out the computing devices which no high value beaver goes without.
Google has allowed its beavers to gnaw on some organic material to build some dams. Specifically, the newspapers which have been affected by Google’s online advertising (no I am not forgetting Craigslist.com. I am just focusing on the Google at the moment) can avail themselves of AI. The idea is… cost cutting. Could there be some learnings for the Google? What I mean is that such a series of tests or trials provides the Google with telemetry. Such telemetry allows the Google to refine its news writing capabilities. The trajectory of such knowledge may allow the Google to embark on its own newspaper experiment. Where will that lead? I don’t know, but it does not bode well for real journalists or some other entities.
The YouTube price increase is positioned as a better experience. Could the sharp increase in ads before, during, and after a YouTube video be part of a strategy? What I am hypothesizing is that more ads will force users to pay to be able to watch a YouTube video without being driven crazy by ads for cheap mobile, health products, and gun belts? Deteriorating the experience allows a customer to buy a better experience. Could that be semi-accurate?
The quantum supremacy thing strikes me as 100 percent PR with a dash of high school braggadocio. The write up speaks to me this way: “I got a higher score on the SAT.” Snort snort snort. The snorts are a sound track to putting down those whose machines just don’t have the right stuff. I wonder if this is how others perceive the article.
And the busy beavers turned up at the White House. The beavers say, “We will be responsible with this AI stuff. We AI promise.” Okay, I believe this because I don’t know what these creatures mean when the word “responsible” is used. I can guess, however.
Net net: The ethicist from Harvard and the soon-to-be-former president of Stanford are available to provide advisory services. Silicon Valley is a metaphor for many good things, especially for the companies and their senior executives. Life will get better and better with certain high technology outfits running the show, pulling the strings, and controlling information, won’t it?
Stephen E Arnold, July 21, 2023
What, Google? Accuracy Through Plagiarism
July 14, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1-21.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Now that AI is such a hot topic, tech companies cannot afford to hold back due to small flaws. Like a tendency to spit out incorrect information, for example. One behemoth seems to have found a quick fix for that particular wrinkle: simple plagiarism. Eager to incorporate AI into its flagship Search platform, Google recently released a beta version to select users. Forbes contributor Matt Novak was among the lucky few and shares his observations in, “Google’s New AI-Powered Search Is a Beautiful Plagiarism Machine.”
The blacksmith says, “Oh, oh, I think I have set my shop on fire.” The image is the original work of the talented MidJourney system.
The author takes us through his query and results on storing live oysters in the fridge, complete with screenshots of the Googlebot’s response. (Short answer: you can for a few days if you cover them with a damp towel.) He highlights passages that were lifted from websites, some with and some without tiny tweaks. To be fair, Google does link to its source pages alongside the pilfered passages. But why click through when you’ve already gotten what you came for? Novak writes:
“There are positive and negative things about this new Google Search experience. If you followed Google’s advice, you’d probably be just fine storing your oysters in the fridge, which is to say you won’t get sick. But, again, the reason Google’s advice is accurate brings us immediately to the negative: It’s just copying from websites and giving people no incentive to actually visit those websites. Why does any of this matter? Because Google Search is easily the biggest driver of traffic for the vast majority of online publishers, whether it’s major newspapers or small independent blogs. And this change to Google’s most important product has the potential to devastate their already dwindling coffers. … Online publishers rely on people clicking on their stories. It’s how they generate revenue, whether that’s in the sale of subscriptions or the sale of those eyeballs to advertisers. But it’s not clear that this new form of Google Search will drive the same kind of traffic that it did over the past two decades.”
Might Google be like a blacksmith who accidentally sets fire to his workshop? Content is needed to make the fires of revenue burn brightly. No content, problem?
Cynthia Murrell, July 14, 2023
Google and AMP: Good Enough
July 10, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1-17.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Due to the rise of mobile devices circa the 2010s, the Internet was slammed with slow-loading Web-sites. In 2015, Google told publishers it had a solution dubbed “Accelerated Mobile Pages” (AMP). Everyone bought into AMP but it soon proved to be more like a “Speed Trap” says The Verge.
AMP worked well at first but it was hard to use advertising tools that were not from Google. Google’s plan to make the Internet great again backfired. Seventeen state attorneys filed a lawsuit with AMP as a key topic against Google in 2020. The lawsuit alleges Google purposefully designed AMP to prevent publishers from using alternative ad tools. The US Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit in January 2023, claiming Google is attempting to control more of the Internet.
A creature named Googzilla chats with a well-known publisher about a business relationship. Googzilla is definitely impressed with the publisher’s assertion that quality news can generate traffic and revenue without a certain Web search company’s help. Does the publisher trust Googzilla? Sure, the publisher says, “We just have lunch and chat. No problem.”
Google promised that AMP would drive more traffic to publishers’ Web sites and it would fix the loading speed lag. Google was the only big tech company that offered a viable solution to the growing demand mobile devices created, so everyone was forced to adopt AMP. Google did not care as long as it was the only player in the game:
“As long as anyone played the game, everybody had to. ‘Google’s strategy is always to create prisoner’s dilemmas that it controls — to create a system such that if only one person defects, then they win,’ a former media executive says. As long as anyone was willing to use AMP and get into that carousel, everyone else had to do the same or risk being left out.”
Google promised AMP would be open source but Google flip-flopped on that decision whenever it suited the company. Non-Google developers “fixed” AMP by working through its locked down structure so it could support other tools. Because of their efforts AMP got better and is now a decent tool. Google, however, trundles along. Perhaps Google is just misunderstood.
Whitney Grace, July 10, 2023
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