The Internet Has a Problem.

     

    Have you ever wanted to know how something worked? How cable TV works, how cellphones make calls, or really any questions where something can be sold? Maybe you want to know the tech behind broadcast news or satellite TV. Or, more notoriously, the solution can be sold: "how to make a computer virus," where the 'solution' is a VPN and strong antivirus technology.

      

      In questions like these, you will not find detailed answers on websites. Maybe you will find some answers, yes, but all of these industries have blogs, blogs that are meant to sell their software or service. Unfortunately, the market is so saturated with these blog advertisements, essentially posts that give a small overview of the topic but mostly sell their service, that you can't find real information about it.

      I was researching an article about the tech used in radio stations, and unfortunately, all I got were blog articles about their cloud-based radio station software. Obviously, this was not in use in the 70s, nor would it be useful for someone researching the history behind this tech.

This problem is compounded by Google search ads that boost ads up to the top, so the top 5 search results are essentially useless. This, coupled with SEO-filled, information-light blog posts, means that internet researching gets a lot harder.

Don't get me wrong, the Internet is a wonderful tool that has remarkably changed civilization, but I wish there was a way that we could find a solution for this. I like to read, and I would like to read more blogs that have real human information sharing their experiences. Like Brooke Morrison, maybe all the social media teens will transition from curated life experiences to blog posts and stories on a webpage. That's what I did on SSALTW (though hosted on blogspot).

As for new research tools, they are needed to search the web. Traditional search is dying, and AI is rising. Maybe the best researching tools would be using Google AI mode and Gemini, Perplexity, and ChatGPT to find the answers to life's biggest questions.