My experience on the internet suggests that high-signal information usually has very low memetic fitness. All the good sources of information I've found have been buried away and I've come across them serendipitously.
Not particularly surprising though, entertainment is the lowest common denominator so it's much easier for that kind of stuff to spread. High-signal information is the complete opposite: very few people can actually tell if it's valuable, and it's not particularly shareable.
To be fair, most people aren't really looking for super high-signal info anyway. Closer to the minimal amount of information I need, presented in an easily digestible way, or looking for infotainment around something they're interested in!
> To be fair, most people aren't really looking for super high-signal info anyway.
This is the charitable interpretation. It's not that people are necessarily dumb or that "the algorithm" is trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's that the vast majority of the time, people are "engaging" with the Internet in order to seek out entertainment in the first place.
The world wide web began its life as the promise of unlimited information at our fingertips. But most people who need to engage in "serious" academic research on a topic are going directly to specialized sources for that information that they are already familiar with and trust. Even on the Internet, websites like StackOverflow come to mind when it comes to software development. But more often than not I'm going back to text books, be it for algorithms or design patterns or what have you.
When I'm taking time to engage with the web, even here right now on Hacker News, it's because I'm taking a break. I'm not engaged in any specific productive endeavour at the moment. I'm looking to fill my time and unwind until I'm back to work and chores.
I used to think about this when I considered why there is so much hate and outrage on social media. My theory is that people are on social media because they're on a break, or they just got home, or they just got their kids to sleep and all they want to do is look at cute cat gifs or watch TikTok videos or whatever. Then the news feed shoves a bunch of stuff in their face that they disagree with or find contrarian, because they're most likely to engage with it, and the fact that they're tired and not in the mood to have a well reasoned conversation goes a long way towards triggering that outburst.
It's a cliche truism to say that the algorithms are giving people want they want. I think what people want most of the time is entertainment and "easy reading/watching." And so there is far more of that than anything else.
Somewhat related is that the type of format that some people like to glibly dismiss as clickbait--how to..., 5 takeaways for $EVENT, etc. Whether they deliver or not there's at least a promise of practical advice or easily digestible information that doesn't involve working through 2,000 or 3,000 words to figure out what the key points are. I may appreciate a good New Yorker article but sometimes I just want some highlights.
Anything that comes from an academic (.edu / .ac.uk / your local equivalent) domain, Youtube channels of academic institutions (the less professionally recorded the video, the better), the Wikipedia references for a particular topic.
Not particularly surprising though, entertainment is the lowest common denominator so it's much easier for that kind of stuff to spread. High-signal information is the complete opposite: very few people can actually tell if it's valuable, and it's not particularly shareable.
To be fair, most people aren't really looking for super high-signal info anyway. Closer to the minimal amount of information I need, presented in an easily digestible way, or looking for infotainment around something they're interested in!