The Commercialization Of The Internet

cattle-herdedblue_rose wrote in the forum, “The internet has….”gone commercial”, for lack of a better term.”

She’s right.  You can pay to have your product “trending”, for example. This gives the impression your widget or your website or your opinion, for that matter, is popular.

But today, I want to talk about “search”. It’s getting harder and harder to find things via a search. Google has it’s bias but this problem is about to get much worse.

This is because there are tools out there now, that allow a person to manipulate search results on their site.  These tools are proliferating quickly. (Pluto in Capricorn)

The tools (or WordPress plugins) allow a person like me to direct your query to certain pages. For example, today, if you search “asteroids” on this site, you will pull up a variety of content.  With one of these tools, I would be able to direct you to whatever content I wanted you to see…presumably, I’d send you to a page where I am selling something.

Think about this. The free content is out there, but you can’t find it.

I have no plans take this site in that direction. It’s not because I don’t want you to buy anything. I do want you to buy things here, I can’t survive without sales.

But I don’t want to be part of this other way of living where people are herded like cattle.  And I didn’t work for all these years so that I could deprive people of what I created to help them.  Hopefully, there’s enough appreciation out there, people will willingly support this site.

Have you noticed the internet becoming more commercial?

15 thoughts on “The Commercialization Of The Internet”

  1. Avatar
    ScottishFoldSoul

    Awful. Covert propaganda so what looks like open access is alllll rigged. Hopefully there are many more like you who recoil from the idea of doing this because it runs dead counter to your mission of providing the most helpful content possible to readers.

  2. I beginning to miss the card catalog in the library.

    The internet is making our world smaller in so many ways. I personally visit a grand total of four sites, 80% of the time.

    1. Loved the card catalogue. you have to be a certain age to really love it. love google but want to keep it from becoming a mere sales tool.

  3. Amen! And I digress, but the smell of the books, the cloistered feeling of the stacks, and the potential worlds they open…all at our disposal and you’re correct, no commercialization.

  4. Changing seo algorhythms, algo sounds like algol the star of beheading in Taurus. The google changes like panda and penguin were sudden and ruthless seo algo updates. Learning the facebook ad platform and changing with the times on a platform that was designed as a form of military communication originally can be challenging. Free traffic versus paid ads have been debated for years and only if you advertise do you have more control and even that is a bid system almost gambling platform these days.Most marketers say building your email list is critical for business self protection.

  5. sorry meant the original internet originally a military communication platform. FB was originally dating based to rate attractive uni students. Thanks for the Pluto in cap heads up Elsa, I have a Shopify shop but like you said it’s on someone else’s virtual real estate / platform and I need backup plans.

    1. There’s a mentality – get the people there and then figure out how to make money. People who control a website can control how you’re directed around it, more and more. Like facebook, if you want your content seen, then pony up the bucks. It’s a bribing system, basically.

      The other thing is there is open contempt for the user, built into some of these plugins. Sarcasm and/or mocking – the user is dehumanized.

      It makes me very uncomfortable. I’m from another era or ilk, I guess. It makes my skin crawl.

  6. People want quality and are prepared to pay for it without feeling belittled, – like they don’t realize they’re being forcefed! People’s power of choice will win its way forward, somehow so that quality sites, like yours, continue to provide what we want and need.

  7. Had a hard time learning small biz online marketing the last decade and avoiding outright manipulation built into the system as you say so I understand.Marketing guys are ruthless, even calling people who visit your site traffic is a creepy term, human traffic, so casual and close to sounding like human trafficking.The last course I did the guy was so dispassionate about marketing to spiritual folks, just a market to him. I try to tell myself’facts,'( mercury ret in sadge square mars) and realistically cope with the traditional aggression of guys setting up these systems as I don’t want to be all ‘I’m into-healing-and-who-knew-the-world-was-commercial?’ again like some of my twenties when the following the heart is supposed to act as an overall math calculator for personal finances.Am your average woman whose background is healing, remedial massage / teachers aide/tutor working with kids(moon in cancer trine neptune)as well as communications, gemini asc. Having grown up catholic too, if it comes to the chip bye bye.Eventual backup plan trading in bartering veggies and a few gold coins can see too like a lot of people but not ready to jump off the ride yet.Find the ‘living the dream’ instagram marketing, as you mention ‘fake world’challenging too with my mars square mercury.Good on you for persevering to the truth no matter how unpalatable.There’s a pony express ad I would love to post here – orphans wanted, must be willing to risk death, transitting saturn in sag. The challenges are real.

  8. ps sorry for rant. Just sold a book on making clothes from a spiritually oriented site I had bought for $60 some years back and resold online for $20 this week imagining the nice clothes the lady would make for her family. Included a handwritten note. Got an email thanking me saying she enjoyed ‘doing commerce’ with me. I now realise of course she could turn around and resell for a profit. Yikes I have to get this heart and numbers biz thing right.

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