#Commons#AI#GenerativeAI#Chatbots#Copyleft#Google#Search: "Ostrom described how commons can be wisely managed, over very long timescales, by communities that self-governed. Part of her work concerns how users of a commons must have the ability to exclude bad actors from their shared resources.
When that breaks down, commons can fail – because there's always someone who thinks it's fine to shit in the well rather than walk 100 yards to the outhouse.
Enshittification is the process by which control over the internet moved from self-governance by members of the commons to acts of wanton destruction committed by despicable, greedy assholes who shit in the well over and over again.
It's not just the spammers who take advantage of Google's lazy incompetence, either. Take "copyleft trolls," who post images using outdated Creative Commons licenses that allow them to terminate the CC license if a user makes minor errors in attributing the images they use:" https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/09/shitting-in-the-well/#advon
Fun fact: "The Tragedy Of the Commons" is a hoax created by the white nationalist Garrett Hardin to justify stealing land from colonized people and moving it from collective ownership, "rescuing" it from the inevitable tragedy by putting it in the hands of a private owner, who will care for it properly, thanks to "rational self-interest":
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
On that CNET thing in the last boost, my first thought was "this is gonna make search even more useless" and… yeeeep "They are clearly optimized to take advantage of Google’s search algorithms, and to end up at the top of peoples’ results pages"
Oh and if anyone is looking for other outlets to check for "we pinky swear it's not #AI" churnalism, #AdVon helpfully gives you a list of high profile clients (claimed; lying or exaggerating about having big name customers is an extremely common SV startup tactic) https://advoncommerce.com/