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The world needs more search engines

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Re: The world needs more search engines

#231

Post by tiborsaas »

anticensor wrote: post #226
tiborsaas wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you break up Google or Alphabet, the search division would probably remain a single company. It won't solve anything. So You get Google Search Inc. Adsense Inc. AdWords Inc, Gmail Inc, I imagine. This would be just restructuring, Googlers are too smart to get hold back by this and they probably already have an emergency plan if it remotely comes as a possibility.

AdSense and AdWords are two parts of the same product.

I know, just an example to imagine breaking Google up in a really stupid way.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#232

Post by shadowgovt »

chinesempire wrote: post #107
shadowgovt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like tautological reasoning. Brittle empires fall. The Chinese empire has a history (including mutations to its government) spanning thousands of years.

> the last Chinese dynasty — the Qing dynasty — fell in 1911–1912, it marked the end of the nation's incredibly long imperial history.

It marked the end of that government, but the nation of China is still very much an empire, by definition of its ambition and cultural reach exceeding its borders. In the same sense that the US and UK are empires.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#233

Post by rndgermandude »

icotyl wrote: post #186
kuschku wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even worse, likely in a country that won’t match your same values of “freedom” For many people in the world, the US already is a country that matches this exact description - what with toothless antitrust laws, anti-union actions being tolerated, and what the ICE camps look like is something we don't even have to talk about. Sure, China would be worse, but you should strive for more than just "the second worst deve…

Has Europe’s pro-union climate led to more competitive software companies, or better pay and benefits for its software engineers? Every European engineer I talk to seems either amazed or resentful about American software engineers’ salaries and benefits. How have the unions helped you in this regard? How have they helped your tech companies be more competitive in the global economy?

> Has Europe’s pro-union climate led to more competitive software companies, or better pay and benefits for its software engineers?

E.g. we get health insurance even if we quit or switch jobs.

The thing about European software companies tho is that they are hardly unionized at all.

>Every European engineer I talk to seems either amazed or resentful about American software engineers’ salaries and benefits.

I am not, to be honest. Sure, at a first glance it might seem the US devs make tons of money. But once you account for cost of living (like the astronomical rents in every major tech hub city) things do not look that rosy anymore. I know US people who make twice or trice what I make, and yet they live in dumps that you can hardly call apartment and they say they cannot afford any better. That, combined with the at-will nature of US employment, really doesn't strike me as desirable.

I like living in a country where I have a pretty awesome standard of living, a nice apartment that I don't have to share (unless I want to) and a safety net that is (at least for now) able to catch me should I ever struggle or become sick, so I won't go homeless.

Those things are largely thanks to work the unions did in the past and keep doing.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#234

Post by beatgammit »

bko wrote: post #73

Google's dominance is almost entirely due to the fact that its by far the best at search. I use ddg, but I use google search via !g about 25-50% of the time after a failed attempts. And 9 times out of 10 Google gives me exactly what I'm looking for. For instance: "the actor that plays the news guy in spiderman" ddg: Tom Holland (side bar) Spider-Man Homecoming (imdb) Tom Holland (wiki) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Ver…

Have you considered using !sp (StartPage) instead? It essentially does "incognito mode" for you.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#235

Post by gummydog71 »

arrosenberg wrote: post #112

How do you design regulation that holds the giants accountable, doesn't impair smaller companies' ability to enter/innovate in the space, and isn't quickly corruptible by the (well-resourced) companies you are trying to control? We're better served by breaking them up and enforcing and strengthening the pro-competition laws on the books. The government has a pretty mixed record with regulating industry, and a far mor…

If regulation can affectively demonetize consumer data it would be a huge move in the right direction.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#236

Post by unnouinceput »

Aeolun wrote: post #201
hu3 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keystrokes + IP = NSA knows exactly what I'm typing. This "feature" should be off by default on any software that claims to be a privacy respecting alternative to Chrome.

Can you ID someone positively by their typing patterns and an IP?

Yes. Also search WW2 war stories about radio operators, this technique dates back since then. US Pacific operators always knew which Japanese radio operator was transmitting Morse codes by listening to their typing patterns. And if a human was able to do it, imagine the accuracy of computers in this regard.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#237

Post by OrgNet »

keepper wrote: post #71

It’s really sad to see the anti-success rhetoric. I was around during the “search wars”, and what’s usually forgotten is that well, they were by far the best behaved as a corporate entity. This “romantization” of this ideal state, devoid of historical context or acknowledgement of the world we live in is extremwly counter productive. Should google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple do better? Absofuckinglutely!!! Regulate them…

>Knee jerk solutions don’t and have never fixed anything

generalizations are false a lot of the times

Re: The world needs more search engines

#238

Post by tracer4201 »

rdiddly wrote: post #225
keepper wrote: post #71

It’s really sad to see the anti-success rhetoric. I was around during the “search wars”, and what’s usually forgotten is that well, they were by far the best behaved as a corporate entity. This “romantization” of this ideal state, devoid of historical context or acknowledgement of the world we live in is extremwly counter productive. Should google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple do better? Absofuckinglutely!!! Regulate them…

Are you reacting to the blog post, or something else? I didn't see any anti-success rhetoric, only anti-monopoly rhetoric. But for the record, success isn't sacred, especially if people succeed at something that sucks. I'd be decidedly anti-success where genocidal dictators were concerned, for example. I'd be explicitly against their ambition, their drive, and their personal fulfillment and growth journeys, sorry.

What behavior here is breaking anti trust laws? And please be specific. Amazing that you compare Google and genocidal dictators.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#239

Post by Mirioron »

arrosenberg wrote: post #176
xixixao wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest problem is: How do you break up a software system? I understand how you break up a company that mines ore, produces steel, builds railways, runs transportation - those are all separable ventures that can negotiate contracts almost as easily as when they had a single owner. But the tech giants run a single system: Amazon in the delivery, FB in the social graph (DB), Google in the knowledge graph. Those woul…

https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big... Fair point - there are certain cases where software platforms are too valuable and complex to break up, and should be regulated like utilities with rules for fair play. Amazon shouldn't be able to use it's marketplace data to monopolize entire categories, Google Search needs to be a public platform, with regulated rates for API access (which Google itsel…

>Google can keep Search, but Ads, Doubleclick, Analytics, Waze, GCP, Google Home - all of that needs to be broken up.

>Some of the resulting businesses may have to update their model or may not remain profitable, but historically break-ups have resulted in an increase in value for the new businesses.

All of this teaches one lesson: be more like Apple. Treat your customers poorly and massively overcharge them. Make sure you are never the biggest in your field. Essentially, don't offer products that are too good for the price.

I'd also like to point out that if those companies have to be spun off on their own, then the only way for some of them to make money is to sell your data to third parties. Right now Google doesn't seem to do that, but how else would Analytics monetize itself, if it cannot offer ads?

Re: The world needs more search engines

#240

Post by bagacrap »

Aeolun wrote: post #192
tiborsaas wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you break up Google or Alphabet, the search division would probably remain a single company. It won't solve anything. So You get Google Search Inc. Adsense Inc. AdWords Inc, Gmail Inc, I imagine. This would be just restructuring, Googlers are too smart to get hold back by this and they probably already have an emergency plan if it remotely comes as a possibility.

If Google search is not funded by ads any more, they’ll suddenly have a serious problem.

I don't think it would be possible to split off AdWords from Search. Search would either partner with AdWords or roll its own ads and then we'd be back to square one.

When Bell Telephone was split it was cut along geographic lines. That would also not work on a tech company for obvious reasons --- software knows no borders. I don't know of a sensible way to break up tech giants because the efficiencies of scale create a natural winner take all market.

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