Web search engines arguably form the most popular data-driven systems in contemporary society. They wield a considerable power by functioning as gatekeepers of the Web, with most user journeys on the Web beginning with them. Starting from the late 1990s, search engines have been dominated by the paradigm of link-based web search. In this paper, we critically analyze the political economy of the paradigm of link-based web search, drawing upon insights and methodologies from critical political economy. We draw several insights on how link-based web search has led to phenomena that favor capital through long-term structural changes on the Web, and how it has led to accentuating unpaid digital labor and ecologically unsustainable practices, among several others. We show how contemporary observations on the degrading quality of link-based web search can be traced back to the internal contradictions with the paradigm, and how such socio-technical phenomena may lead to a disutility of the link-based web search model. Our contribution is primarily on enhancing the understanding of the political economy of link-based web search, and laying bare the phenomena at work, and implicitly catalyze the search for alternative models.

翻译：网络搜索引擎堪称当代社会中最流行的数据驱动系统。它们作为网络守门人，拥有巨大权力，绝大多数网络用户旅程都从搜索引擎开始。自20世纪90年代末以来，搜索引擎一直由链接型网络搜索范式主导。本文借鉴批判政治经济学的见解和方法论，对链接型网络搜索范式的政治经济学进行了批判性分析。我们得出多项见解，揭示了链接型网络搜索如何通过长期结构性网络变革催生有利于资本的现象，如何加剧无偿数字劳动和生态不可持续实践等问题。我们证明了当前关于链接型网络搜索质量下降的观察可追溯至该范式的内在矛盾，并阐明了此类社会技术现象如何导致链接型网络搜索模型的负效用。本研究的贡献主要在于深化对链接型网络搜索政治经济学的理解，揭示其作用机制，并间接推动搜索替代模型的探索。