The way to solve this problem that's been discussed before is to require authenticated identity in the protocol layer, so every packet can be traced to a real, live person.
But then that breeds new problems:
1) The NSA might like the ability to tie every packet to a person, but privacy and anonymity are generally good things.
2) Just because you have a reliable way to track/measure "real" reputation/authority/trust, will that stop people from abusing it? Did the offline version of this stop Paula Deen from building an empire on unhealthy eating only to later reveal her own diet gave her diabetes? No.
Human nature is driving a fair bit of this stuff, and has nothing to do with Google, the web, protocols, or spam. We always try to eliminate the "flawed human" from systems, and it never works.
3) The fact that reputation/authority/trust is unreliable might actually be a feature not a bug. For one thing, it allows some dude with no social capital to get a toehold and get his stuff in front of users. Generally Google allows this to happen, and if the content sucks, it falls away. I don't mind a bit of spam if it's the price for more diversity and opportunity for people outside the "lucky sperm club" to rise.
Overall, I don't buy this "destruction of the web" stuff. If anything, Google has made both the web AND search are way better today. It's possible that Google's anti-spam strategies will hit a point of diminishing marginal return, and the spammers will catch up and the balance will swing in their direction again, but so far that's not been the trend.
I think the equilibrium we're seeing is that Google allows a very small amount of spam tactics spam to work for a while, but they use other signals that keeps that stuff from getting major traffic (e.g. eHow). So gaming the system can get you in search rankings, but if you suck, you won't stay there.
But more importantly, I don't want to trade off privacy and anonymity to eliminate what amounts to a very small amount of spam.
But then that breeds new problems:
1) The NSA might like the ability to tie every packet to a person, but privacy and anonymity are generally good things.
2) Just because you have a reliable way to track/measure "real" reputation/authority/trust, will that stop people from abusing it? Did the offline version of this stop Paula Deen from building an empire on unhealthy eating only to later reveal her own diet gave her diabetes? No.
Human nature is driving a fair bit of this stuff, and has nothing to do with Google, the web, protocols, or spam. We always try to eliminate the "flawed human" from systems, and it never works.
3) The fact that reputation/authority/trust is unreliable might actually be a feature not a bug. For one thing, it allows some dude with no social capital to get a toehold and get his stuff in front of users. Generally Google allows this to happen, and if the content sucks, it falls away. I don't mind a bit of spam if it's the price for more diversity and opportunity for people outside the "lucky sperm club" to rise.
Overall, I don't buy this "destruction of the web" stuff. If anything, Google has made both the web AND search are way better today. It's possible that Google's anti-spam strategies will hit a point of diminishing marginal return, and the spammers will catch up and the balance will swing in their direction again, but so far that's not been the trend.
I think the equilibrium we're seeing is that Google allows a very small amount of spam tactics spam to work for a while, but they use other signals that keeps that stuff from getting major traffic (e.g. eHow). So gaming the system can get you in search rankings, but if you suck, you won't stay there.
But more importantly, I don't want to trade off privacy and anonymity to eliminate what amounts to a very small amount of spam.