Google has - at least at this point - maintained the line where it keeps organic results separate from the advertisements. But over time - so in other words, you still get the - there still are honest to goodness results which are based on an algorithm which is based on how important or how many people link to that particular site, so there's that. At the very beginning, there were unobtrusive advertisements on the side that sort of showed up when you typed in certain phrases. Over time, the amount of real estate that those ads take up has increased.

I wish more of the web had stayed nonprofit. But the advertising model took over and I think has delivered us to where we are, along with the development of content, which is designed to do nothing else but make you click on it or share it. And I think it's kind of a low goal for content, and I think that's taken us to our current abyss.

Nothing, save the hangman's noose, concentrates the mind like piles of cash.

I'm kind of concerned the combined effect, not only Google, all these companies is kind of to make us more boring and that seems the opposite of what the Internet was supposed to be.

In fact, the big steps forward for advertising, especially after World War I were when government just began employing the tools of advertising for its own purposes to get people to join the army and other things.

What's so interesting about the internet - I keep saying this - is the web has gotten worse over the last five years as opposed to better.

There's always going to be a tradeoff between trolling and anonymity, and I guess that's the way life will be. And you can manage it, but you can't cure it.