$100B "Internet Idiot" Industry Set To Explode

"...the idiocy of millions who don’t understand that those blue-underlined words on the right of search results are NOT, in fact, search results at all."

Wrong.

If you're researching a paper, then the sponsored search results might not be your best bet. But if you're searching for a product you need, I would argue that the sponsored search results might be even more accurate.

Sponsored search results cost people money. Those people are not throwing their money away. There is a reason why they are paying to appear on that particular keyword. They have something you need. They are willing solve to your need for a price.

You're not an idiot if you need a new pair of shoes, click on a sponsored result for Zappos, and find what you want.

zhyder• 18 years ago

You're right, sponsored results aren't just for idiots. But the article makes a valid point too. A substantial fraction (maybe majority) of web-users are probably not tech-savvy enough to know the difference between free and paid links.

goldsmith• 18 years ago

Agreed- remember the release of AOL search data two years ago? That may not be a representative sample, but a large number of those users seemed to have no idea what a search engine's basic function even was.

anamax• 18 years ago

No, the article doesn't make a valid point.

It relies on the bogus assumption people should distinguish sponsored from "earned" search results.

Objectively, the value of a search result does NOT depend on whether it was sponsored or "earned". Subjectively, some people do care, but they're economically irrational so it's unclear why one would fault people who don't care.

jonmc12• 18 years ago

Exploiting people's decision making through tricks or noise is nothing internet specific. Grocery store marketers have their equations to induce purchases on the shelf by using colors, gimmicks, etc - just like spam kings. Consumer brands place their names in movies, tv shows and songs and sneak into peoples buying habits as a virtue of repetition and numbers - much like the numbers that bring domain squatters their traffic. And, of course, our political leaders are elected by poisoning our attention space with commercials full of falsehoods aimed at changing people's sentiment illogically.

Welcome to our age of idiot capitalism. This is the era where we all get to put up with the information noise created by formulaic entrepreneurs who are seeking to exploit the collective idiot among us.

j2d2• 18 years ago

This self delusion comes from the fact that acknowledging that the Internet is largely made up of simpletons who do not know what a web application is, will never really understand Twitter, and who continue to use Hotmail happily, and who use Yahoo as their "homepage", puts them at risk of catatonic stupifaction and massive permanent brain damage.

This is amazingly condescending... It completely misses the point of figuring out what people want and assumes everyone is doing nothing better with their time.

For example: I understand twitter just fine and couldn't care much less about it.

electromagnetic• 18 years ago

Agreed. I understand Twitter, it's inherently useless to me and I'll likely never use it.

The whole argument in the piece is invalid. People are using Twitter and Facebook to reduce the amount of time they spend with people whilst trying to stay in contact with people. My girlfriend uses it and I want to block the damn thing because she'll spend an hour on that 'keeping in touch' instead of us going out for a meal with the people we're trying to keep in touch with.

People went from keeping blogs to using twitter and now instead of making a post or two they'll make a couple of microposts. It's completely, inherently moronic. I contend that people using these completely unneeded services are far dumber than the people clicking google ads.

I have little doubt there are people who've spent months worth of time on Facebook when they could have used that time to actually be with family and friends. Or shit, they could have worked the time they wasted and went on a nice vacation to Paris.

Ardit20• 18 years ago

You guys seem to have been missing his point which is rather simple. Most people, unlike us, do not know how the internet works, are rather new to the internet, maybe have not even heard of digg and are stupid, as far as the internet is concerned.

No wonder that market is growing, new people are coming and porbably always will. That I suppose is what the "make a million by tomorrow" market relies on, also spam as he mentioned etc.

His point kind of seems to be, make money off the ignorant as there are many of them.

misuba• 18 years ago

The real question is, what's the business model for teaching people Internet literacy? And can that even be done?

ahpeeyem• 18 years ago

I'm an idiot in more ways than I'm savvy.

Cyclists and motorcyclists think I'm an idiot for driving my car (I'm a "cager") instead of riding to work and getting fit/saving the planet/saving money/not wearing lycra or leather.

And I'm an idiot to the car salesman whose lot I walk onto, knowing very little about cars or vehicle finance or insurance, and I walk out stitched up with a new car loaded with aftermarket products, extended warranty and on high-interest finance.

I'm an idiot to the people who care about fashion because I'm pasty and overweight and I buy what mainstream shops put in front of me.

I'm an idiot to the finance industry for having stacks of debt and no appreciating assets to speak of.

There's a million idiot industries where those in the know make money from the idiots who want to focus their attention on Something Else. The more scrupulous are really just adding value for a fee (say Google, Amazon), and there are those less ethical (e.g. spammers) who take the money of those who can't, don't want to, or are too lazy to learn the ins and outs.

As sarcastic as the article is, it's correct that there's tons of money to be made from these people who don't know or care how the internet works, as long as they get what they want.

SingAlong• 18 years ago

I second ahpeeyam's point. "...as long as they are getting what they want..."

In my surrounding I meet a lot of people everyday who dont even know youtube. Why consider youtube, the address bar... They are clueless as to what to type in. All they know is www.google.com for info. When they search they are happy to find the info they need whether its the link on the right(ads) or left.

Most common search keywords have quality advertisers. Now that most ads are of quality the user wouldnt mind clicking on them. We shouldnt be forgetting the fact that these ad matches are displayed according to keywords. When you search for "xyz tv", you might get a CNET review for it in your search results and an ad reading "buy xyz tv at $250". Now the action is dependent on the user. He might either read the review or buy it from the ad link or might even buy it from a search result page that read "at 50% discount" which might be an even better price.

$100B "Internet Idiot" Industry Set To Explode

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