Technology

59446 readers

4722 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

604

How do people find good information on the internet these days? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by catch22@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

181 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It used to be that you would do a search on a relevant subject and get blog posts, forums posts, and maybe a couple of relevant companies offering the product or service. (And if you wanted more information on said company you could give them a call and actually talk to a real person about said service) You could even trust amazon and yelp reviews. Now searches have been completely taken over by Forbes top 10 lists, random affiliate link click through aggregators that copy and paste each others work, review factories that will kill your competitors and boost your product stars, ect.... It seems like the internet has gotten soooo much harder to use, just because you have to wade through all the bullshit. It's no wonder people switch to reddit and lemmy style sites, in a way it mirrors a little what kind of information you used to be able to garner from the internet in it's early days. What do people do these days to find genuine information about products or services?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] tony@lemmy.hoyle.me.uk 58 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Stick to sites you know. If you're looking for a review and you get a hit on a site you don't know there's a better than 50% chance it's just an ad generated site (and frequently these days just the output from chatgpt).

Sucks for lesser known sites that are trying to get noticed, but unless google work out a way of removing the crap from feeds that's the way it is.

Same with youtube.. unless you trust the reviewer, assume it's paid unless there's good evidence otherwise.

Search for reddit/lemmy mentions specifically.. although those can be astroturfed too.. but the comments are generally helpful.

[–] ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

You hit the nail on the head, mate!

In previous times, I used to follow certain sites more closely, but then life happened and I lost track of things and now several sites have closed and I don't know where to start.

For example, I used to dig GameSpy for game reviews, but it closed down. I rarely buy games these days, but I don't know what to read when I do and want to inform myself (I remember IGN, but I don't know if it's good). I can check out reviews on Steam, but they're short reviews.

Same deal goes for PC reviews or computer accessories. I don't know where to look: everything looks like an ad site. I remember PCmag.com but I don't know if itself is an ad site or what to compare it to, if I wanted to check a second opinion. Every YouTube video about technology feels like a sponsored ad, though some are legit

Edit: fixed grammar

[–] tony@lemmy.hoyle.me.uk 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Games I tend to look for people playing it on twitch. You can't get much better than actually seeing a game in action to know if it's for you.

[–] ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks! Sorry for the late answer! I am still resisting watching Twitch for lack of time, but if that's a good source, I'll go for it!

load more comments (4 replies)

load more comments (5 replies)