That's cool as hell to hear. The cynic in me is a bit ignorant of Swiss law and corporate behavior therein but is sure that at some point some douchebag will figure out a way to weasel out of it or push it in the direction of enshittification all over again, but it's cool to see them make this move none the less.
A product you were just talking about pops up in an online ad. How? Advertising algorithms are so good that they may know what you want even before you do. C...
Download Instagram and start talking about dogs and dog food and it will give you posts and ads about dog food. My friend was talking about random stuff like feet and foot fetishes the other day and you wouldn't believe what was on their feed when they were scrolling.
The whole issue with LLM models right now is that they are notoriously difficult to control. If it were up to Google, every single response would include a reference to some sponsored content - but they can't do that without completely destroying the usefulness of the output and besmirching the sponsor's brand.
Of course, as time passes, we're going to refine this technology, until we have enough control to implement these terrible/profitable ideas. Like any aspect of life under capitalism, we can really only enjoy it while it lasts.
I hope at that point we have enough capable alternatives. Like, hopefully around the time they add ads is also the time when open-source models and apps have caught up again.
Magic Earth is an alternative to Waze and Google Maps with crowdsourced traffic and road hazard information
As part of a #BigTechDiet, I've been hoping to find an alternative to #Waze and #Google Maps - a navigation app that can tell me about slowdowns, hazards, and speed traps based on reports from other users. Today, I learned about Magic Earth.
It's proprietary, but not from FAANG or a company subject to the government of China, Russia, or Five Eyes countries. It collects minimal user data and has a good privacy policy. There are versions for both Android and iOS, and the Android version works without Google services.
An intriguing idea, but they seem a little vague about where they're actually getting their traffic data from, just a "third party". For crowd-sourced traffic data to be at all useful it needs to be coming from software that a lot of drivers happen to have on their phones, so I wouldn't be surprised if Google or Apple aren't to be found somewhere in the pipeline.
Someone @technology suggested this site, I’m a bit surprised by the services offered as alternatives to the big tech companies. Very nice overview. https://european-alternatives.eu