2375: Worst Ladder - Revision history

CalibansCreations: /* Explanation */

2025-01-20T13:49:03Z

‎Explanation

172.70.91.76: /* Explanation */ Two add-ons to a couple of interpretations of the situation.

2022-12-07T18:01:23Z

‎Explanation: Two add-ons to a couple of interpretations of the situation.

GreatWyrmGold: /* Explanation */ GIS'd "worst ladder," two of the first three results were this comic on xkcd.com and this comic on explainxkcd.com.

2022-12-07T17:40:50Z

‎Explanation: GIS'd "worst ladder," two of the first three results were this comic on xkcd.com and this comic on explainxkcd.com.

Theusaf: Reverted edits by Donald Trump (talk) to last revision by CRLF

2022-05-26T19:57:51Z

Reverted edits by Donald Trump (talk) to last revision by CRLF

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Donald Trump: Reverted edit by anti-crap user

2022-05-26T19:04:27Z

Reverted edit by anti-crap user

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CRLF: Reverted vandalism with User:CRLF/OneClickUndo.js

2022-05-26T17:51:24Z

Reverted vandalism with User:CRLF/OneClickUndo.js

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Donald Trump: Reverted edit by anti-crap user

2022-05-26T17:24:14Z

Reverted edit by anti-crap user

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CRLF: Reverted vandalism with User:CRLF/OneClickUndo.js

2022-05-23T18:44:56Z

Reverted vandalism with User:CRLF/OneClickUndo.js

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Xray Kilo Charlie Delta: haha your js cant stop my js

2022-05-23T18:17:50Z

haha your js cant stop my js

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Jacky720: rv

2022-05-04T21:28:52Z

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@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 The joke here is that instead of YouTube or TikTok, possible customers are going to the Google Image search page for [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22worst+ladder%22&source=lnms&tbm=isch "worst ladder"]. Even the meeting participants are entranced by it, so the meeting devolves into everyone showing their favorites to each other, even though everyone there should have a particularly vested interest in their own company's performance.
-Searching for images is an unorthodox source of entertainment, frequently only seen when searching for memes (this, in fact, is how {{w|Know Your Meme}} gauges interest in a meme). Depending on your relationship with Google's personalization algorithms, image results may change up between different people or different views, or remain roughly stagnant from day to day (contrasted with other services that contain new posts nearly every second), and the quality of any Google Images page will decline with scrolling. Therefore, an image search results page is not a sustainable source of entertainment{{Citation needed}}, and may be unlikely to compete with the service in this comic.
+Searching for images is an unorthodox source of entertainment, frequently only seen when searching for memes (this, in fact, is how {{w|Know Your Meme}} gauges interest in a meme). Depending on your relationship with Google's personalization algorithms, image results may change up between different people or different views, or remain roughly stagnant from day to day (contrasted with other services that contain new posts nearly every second), and the quality of any Google Images page will decline with scrolling. Therefore, an image search results page is not a sustainable source of entertainment,{{Citation needed}} and may be unlikely to compete with the service in this comic.
 Search results currently tend to vary widely from person to person, as Google uses the user's search history, IP address, and location to try to find the most relevant result for each person, even if they are not logged in. (For instance, regular readers of xkcd are more likely to see this comic in the search results for "worst ladder".) This provides social opportunities around searching, sometimes exploited by social media posts (which may be how Megan originally found out).

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 Of course, during the age of the internet, there are many sources of free entertainment. {{w|YouTube}} and {{w|TikTok}} provide examples of these services, as practically anyone can choose from a tremendous variety of content. Therefore, this abundance of free content hurts services that require money to see their content, particularly when this content does not have any factors that make it inherently more appealing than the free services. The {{w|Quibi}} paid service shut down, just 6 months after it opened, on the same day that this comic appeared.
-The joke here is that instead of YouTube or TikTok, possible customers are going to the Google Image search page for [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22worst+ladder%22&source=lnms&tbm=isch "worst ladder"]. Even the meeting participants are entranced by it, so the meeting devolves into everyone showing their favorites to each other.
+The joke here is that instead of YouTube or TikTok, possible customers are going to the Google Image search page for [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22worst+ladder%22&source=lnms&tbm=isch "worst ladder"]. Even the meeting participants are entranced by it, so the meeting devolves into everyone showing their favorites to each other, even though everyone there should have a particularly vested interest in their own company's performance.
 Searching for images is an unorthodox source of entertainment, frequently only seen when searching for memes (this, in fact, is how {{w|Know Your Meme}} gauges interest in a meme). Depending on your relationship with Google's personalization algorithms, image results may change up between different people or different views, or remain roughly stagnant from day to day (contrasted with other services that contain new posts nearly every second), and the quality of any Google Images page will decline with scrolling. Therefore, an image search results page is not a sustainable source of entertainment{{Citation needed}}, and may be unlikely to compete with the service in this comic.
@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 Search results currently tend to vary widely from person to person, as Google uses the user's search history, IP address, and location to try to find the most relevant result for each person, even if they are not logged in. (For instance, regular readers of xkcd are more likely to see this comic in the search results for "worst ladder".) This provides social opportunities around searching, sometimes exploited by social media posts (which may be how Megan originally found out).
-The title text explains that the company actually decided to use the idea, and created a subscription service for these images. The idea was a success and was indeed very lucrative. They then tried selling actual "worst ladders", or "worst ladders"-themed merchandise at a hardware store, thinking that people who enjoy looking at others' mistakes would also enjoy making that mistake themselves, but this tie-in ended up costing them as much money as they made from the subscriptions (if the word "disastrous" is meant literally, there may have been injuries and liability lawsuits involved).
+The title text explains that the company actually decided to use the idea, and created a subscription service for these images. The idea was a success and was indeed very lucrative. They then tried selling actual "worst ladders", or "worst ladders"-themed merchandise at a hardware store, thinking that people who enjoy looking at others' mistakes would also enjoy making that mistake themselves, but this tie-in ended up costing them as much money as they made from the subscriptions (if the word "disastrous" is meant literally, there may have been injuries and liability lawsuits involved). Alternately, those who happily consumed this company's new output were put off by the overt commercialism of over-promoting the chain-store and so took their schadenfreude custom somewhere else/back to their original ad hoc sources.
 ==Transcript==

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 Searching for images is an unorthodox source of entertainment, frequently only seen when searching for memes (this, in fact, is how {{w|Know Your Meme}} gauges interest in a meme). Depending on your relationship with Google's personalization algorithms, image results may change up between different people or different views, or remain roughly stagnant from day to day (contrasted with other services that contain new posts nearly every second), and the quality of any Google Images page will decline with scrolling. Therefore, an image search results page is not a sustainable source of entertainment{{Citation needed}}, and may be unlikely to compete with the service in this comic.
-Search results currently tend to vary widely from person to person, as Google uses the user's search history, IP address, and location to try to find the most relevant result for each person, even if they are not logged in. This provides social opportunities around searching, sometimes exploited by social media posts (which may be how Megan originally found out).
+Search results currently tend to vary widely from person to person, as Google uses the user's search history, IP address, and location to try to find the most relevant result for each person, even if they are not logged in. (For instance, regular readers of xkcd are more likely to see this comic in the search results for "worst ladder".) This provides social opportunities around searching, sometimes exploited by social media posts (which may be how Megan originally found out).
 The title text explains that the company actually decided to use the idea, and created a subscription service for these images. The idea was a success and was indeed very lucrative. They then tried selling actual "worst ladders", or "worst ladders"-themed merchandise at a hardware store, thinking that people who enjoy looking at others' mistakes would also enjoy making that mistake themselves, but this tie-in ended up costing them as much money as they made from the subscriptions (if the word "disastrous" is meant literally, there may have been injuries and liability lawsuits involved).