Doc Edward Morbius ⭕<p>It's not often that I get to point out Internet Monopolies <em>being</em> sharecroppers.</p><p>The real dish here is that Reddit was one of the few domains in which the ad-fed <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/enshittification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>enshittification</span></a> and <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/SidamTouch" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>SidamTouch</span></a> (ad-centric media turns everything to shit, reverse of Midas) wasn't ... <em>overly</em> dominant.</p><p>And now courtesy of mismanagement by <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/spez" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>spez</span></a>, <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/Reddit" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Reddit</span></a>, <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/AdvanceMedia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>AdvanceMedia</span></a>, and the Reddit board, <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/GeneralWebSearch" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>GeneralWebSearch</span></a> which as been in a death spiral for <em>years</em> is suddenly getting far, far worse.</p><p>I've commented multiple times that I rely far more on traditional media (mostly books and magazine articles) these days than the Web. Sites/services such as <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/SciHub" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>SciHub</span></a>, <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/LibraryGenesis" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>LibraryGenesis</span></a>, and <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/ZLibrary" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ZLibrary</span></a> have been absolutely vital for this, and despite much of the online world getting markedly worse, these are bright spots.</p><p>(Internet Archive, Wikipedia / Wikimedia, Project Gutenberg, and a handful of other sites/services are among the other bright spots which happen to operate <em>inside</em> the law, though the fact that <em>useful sites have to violate law</em> says a hell of a lot about how corrupt and societally-failing the law is these days.)</p><p>My <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/ResearchMethods" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ResearchMethods</span></a> for <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/ContentDiscovery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ContentDiscovery</span></a> now are based strongly on library research techniques I'd learned in the 1980s: research topics of interest, find major works <strong>and the authors of those works</strong>, read those, and <strong>if the same names or works keep turning up</strong> then find and read those. I'll also make heavy use of podcasts, especially those reviewing books and/or interviewing authors (particularly on academic topics), most notably the <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/NewBooksNetwork" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>NewBooksNetwork</span></a>.</p><p>This may not lead you to <em>truth</em>, but it will virtually always point you to the <em>foundations of present understanding and orthodoxy</em>.</p><p>Truly principled authors will note conflicting / contradictory viewpoints --- <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/PatrickOphuls" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>PatrickOphuls</span></a> is excellent in this regard. Even <em>unprincipled</em> authors will often point out key voices in opposition to them, though usually by trash-talking and belittling them. (I'd found a wonderful example of this in a <em>Reason</em> review on Conway & Oreskes latest book <em>The Big Myth</em>.)</p>