Google and Facebook

Too much of a good thing is pre-destined to become bad. In the past fifteen years, the growth of Google, Facebook, and their related products like youtube and Instagram have transformed our lives. 

Google was supposed to bring all of the world's information to our fingertips. Facebook was supposed to connect the whole world together. 

Both have succeeded in their task. Spectacularly their revenue has grown in the past fifteen years. 

But now they are becoming victims of their own success. Earlier they grew from word of mouth by virtue of having a good product.  But now having captured almost all of the internet population of the world. Only way they can keep getting bigger is by capturing more and more time of their users. They do it by spreading hate, anxiety and fake news.

They block all copyrighted content on their platforms but pretend to be helpless against spread of hate speech. Youtube and Facebook have been facilitators in genocide in mynamar and several other different countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence

Facebook has been aware that Instagram negatively affects the mental health of teenagers. But they will remain helpless against it till the time it keeps suiting them.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/14/facebook-aware-instagram-harmful-effect-teenage-girls-leak-reveals  

These are just few of many examples where their algorithm prioritise hate, negativity, fake news and outrage over everything else.

Google and Facebook algorithm optimise for more clicks. So by default their algorithm prioritise content which can get more share.

If you liked and watch a cat video or any other happy or motivating video, how many times do you share it.  But so many people share videos and posts of desh khatre me, world ending, and so on.

This approach can increase their views for one two years. But our mind cannot sustain such negativity over a long period of time. Many people are quitting Facebook after having burnt out or bored with negativity.

Google search quality is also declining.  There are more ads than ever in search results. Also, google search algorithms has personalized your search result so strongly that sometimes it becomes difficult to search for interesting or diverse viewpoints.

https://twitter.com/mwseibel/status/1477701120319361026?lang=en

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30347719

But at the moment there is no alternative like tiktok to google. Not yet.

But as technology advances, we probably will search for information using voice instead of typing on mobile or laptops.  Whichever company will crack voice search will corner search market. 





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