Still using Google Workspace in our company to collaborate and send/receive emails, still using Google Maps for recommendations and routes, still using a Google phone. I guess the answer is no.
Are you usually an early or a late adopter of tech?
Ask HN: Is Google Dead?
61–70 of 75 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is Google Dead?
#62> Ask HN: Is Google Dead? > Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." Google will remain dominant because of the ease of returning to something familiar. It is the same reason that MS is pushing OpenAI - once they become the familiar brand, people will stay there even if Anthropic blows them out of the water in terms of quality. All the more so here whe…
It’s not a headline of an article though
Re: Ask HN: Is Google Dead?
#63A Google query returns in <<500ms (for me anyways). Try that with your shiny LLM's.
[dead]
Re: Ask HN: Is Google Dead?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, as long as Google doesn't do something similarly stupid (like, say, announcing discontinuation of their search and suite or whatever and that they will offer a great new Bing/O365 integration experience in a year), they will be fine.
Nokia did the „stupid” things only when their business was already collapsing due to Symbian, not the other way around. Took them around 4 years from iPhone’s premiere to get to that point. And I remember people saying that Symbian’s user base is too big to fail even weeks before the WP announcements and later up until the burning rig memo. Ditto Blackberry, although blackberry had a shorter history at that time.
We will never know how it would have played out (and yeah, there were no small amounts of stupid things beforehand), but the actual collapse was induced by pouring gasoline on the burning platform.
Re: Ask HN: Is Google Dead?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does a single company have to be better? Fastmail or Migadu for mail, Kagi for search. I still use YT on a semi regular basis. Just because you’re used to using their products and it’s convenient to use them doesn’t mean there aren’t valid alternatives, or that using those equals “suffering”. That has to be the most first world rant I’ve seen in a while.
I was looking for a new e-mail provider recently and migadu was a top candidate but I can't get over the fact that they price based on number of e-mails received. Isn't that easily exploited? Someone could potentially DoS your account. We're not that different on a daily basis. I use proton but I'm looking for a new less complicated provider so I can handle all e2ee myself. Posteo.de, migadu or fastmail. I still have…
Migadu doesn’t have automated quotas. They are understanding and they won’t block your account because of one bad actor. Even if you go over the limits, they won’t say anything unless it becomes a regular pattern.
I host email for quite a few people, and we’ve never even come close to the limits on my plan, and there’s some people who are very heavy email users.
Re: Ask HN: Is Google Dead?
#66Reddit’s search is notoriously bad, so at least for now, there is still some value in searching Reddit via Google. It lends some credence to the idea that no matter how bad a service decays, it doesn’t matter if there is no better alternative. It can get worse and worse forever if competition doesn’t exist.
You can also search Reddit via DuckDuckGo.
Re: Ask HN: Is Google Dead?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t like the company and stopped using Google search over 5 years ago. I don’t miss it or even notice its absence. I have to remind myself Google is a massive part of many people’s experience of the internet.
Which company is better? When it comes to that level of data and maturity I think there is no valid competition. I've consciously made the decision that I don't care what Google does with my data. They're going to attempt to track me regardless of if I use their services or not. I have friends who live off grid to get away from internet tracking but I don't envy their lifestyle. So I think like most conscious people…
Kagi is much better for multiple reasons IMO:
1. I pay them, so am not so much the product, from an economic perspective
2. The search results are actually better, for me at least, especially with the customisations it allows
3. They do claim to be free of ads/trackers and care about privacy
4. I see no evidence of them doing the bad things Google do
5. Even if they were just as bad, they are much smaller and it would make sense to me to give my money and attention to them over Google for that reason alone
Re: Ask HN: Is Google Dead?
#68I don't get it. People around me have been saying Google is shit for years now but I can't see it. I still reach for google for any minor query, and it's super responsive and it's super helpful. Yes of course I am aware that for certain queries you get a lot of results that have manipulated their way to the top. I just think I have a very good natural bullshit-filter.
> I just think I have a very good natural bullshit-filter.
That's not really sufficient, though—there have been things I've searched for, and every result on the first few pages was bullshit. The problem was not that they weren't clearly bullshit, the problem was that there was no non-bullshit to find instead. At least, not buried deep in the bowels. When I'm just looking up a quick fact, I have a limit to how many worthless links I'm going to follow.
But also: how "super responsive and [...] super helpful" is it being, if to get your information, you need to figure out when what it's giving you is a lie? "It gives me great information because I know when it's lying" doesn't seem very helpful, versus something that... y'know, doesn't send you to lies.
Re: Ask HN: Is Google Dead?
#69Google isn't dead because it still has a massive user base, generating more money than ever. Many people think Google is the internet, and Android and Chrome users have Google as their default search engine. Google even pays Apple billions to be the default on their devices. So from a business perspective, Google is thriving and will continue to do so for years. However, the quality of Google's search results has dec…
> Google isn't dead because it still has a massive user base, generating more money than ever. Do you remember when iPhone was introduced and Nokia/Symbian was still the king? This is exactly the reasoning line that Symbian/Nokia devs kept repeating when iPhone was released. I remember arguing with them endlessly. It took around 4 years for the company to collapse completely.
Nokia lacked vision. They had a widget much like the original iphone, with better resolution (800x480 vs 480x320), had an app store, and has a user friendly GUI. Rather ironically Nokia wouldn't add a WAN chip to their WIFI nokia 770/800/810 until it was too late. Nokia had an app store when apple was still pushing "weblets" or whatever they called the web based apps.
Pretty surprising from a big phone company.
Then a microsoft exec took over, forced a migration to windows mobile, sold a bunch of phone, orphaned those phones, and brought a new generation of incompatible windows phones. Not to mention the famous burning barn memo. Pretty much the entire market dropped windows mobile.
Similarly Balmer's microsoft lacked vision and was doubling down on windows laptops+desktops running microsoft office at the cost of mobile, at the cost of cloud, and a late start on web based apps. They did of course turn things around and started playing nice with others, offering cloud services, supporting linux and android, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Is Google Dead?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Google isn't dead because it still has a massive user base, generating more money than ever. Do you remember when iPhone was introduced and Nokia/Symbian was still the king? This is exactly the reasoning line that Symbian/Nokia devs kept repeating when iPhone was released. I remember arguing with them endlessly. It took around 4 years for the company to collapse completely.
Nokia lacked vision. They had a widget much like the original iphone, with better resolution (800x480 vs 480x320), had an app store, and has a user friendly GUI. Rather ironically Nokia wouldn't add a WAN chip to their WIFI nokia 770/800/810 until it was too late. Nokia had an app store when apple was still pushing "weblets" or whatever they called the web based apps. Pretty surprising from a big phone company. Then…
Although I'm sure the Nokia backstory might be appreciated by casual readers of your comment who weren't aware, I suggest you read the parent's comment in good faith and realize that he's essentially arguing that Google currently is exhibiting a lack of vision similar to Nokia. In an attempt to take my own advise I'll simply note that it's unclear from your comment whether you're actually agreeing with the parent or trying to provide a counterargument of sorts.