this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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The internet is unsearchable at this point. I feel like 99% of websites are fronts.
Product information search is now totally useless. I used to be able to use a part number to find a manual, now it is just scammers Amazon and eBay.
YouTube videos were once good sources for DIY, now the useful shit is buried behind product placement bullshitters.
Or websites showing the first page of a manual and requiring payment if you want to see the rest.
If it could be done, and done right, I'd love to see a couple wiki-like additions to the fediverse, one focused on products and product-specific information and care, with the other focused on the development of a catalogue of methodologies and tech for production and more general repair. Not tech news like the technology instances I'm aware of.
But I guess it's not suited for the format, nor could we really hope for the task of building anything even close to exhaustive to be a surmountable one for us.
I had some ideas about UI/UX for something like this a while ago, though it wouldn't work with Lemmy. I could probably find my notes and sketches, but effectively they're just a bunch of wishful thinking born from my dissatisfaction with the limitations of Wikipedia, the chaos of Google, Youtube, and Reddit, and the ridiculousness that is WikiHow.
It's been a few years tbat I've been crossing my fingers for a positive paradigm shift specifically for the online content about products and DIY.
Unfortunately I feel like if that ever got popular then it would inevitably become tainted by people trying to promote certain products.
There might be some kind of trust system that could work. I have no idea of course but I'm envisioning something like Stack Overflow's system and a bit of community correction and authority à la Wikipedia.
What's been pissing me off for years now is googling a specific company and getting a wall of advertisements for their competitors first. So. Dirty.