Every Google result now looks like an ad • Hacker News Board

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#201

Post by arexxbifs » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

justtopostthis3 wrote: post #147

SquareWheel wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Releasing hundreds of open-source tools and donating protocols to standards bodies is really not what I would consider evil. The web is a thousand times better now than it was ten years ago. And despite the frequent misinformation, "Don't be evil" has never once left their code of conduct.

> The web is a thousand times better now than it was ten years ago. How?? For who?? The web in 2010: type something into Google, click first result, enjoy life The web in 2020: type something into Google, try to figure out which results are ads, click several results before anything is useful, click through cookie disclaimer, refuse to allow notifications, decline to download the mobile app, attempt to dismiss surpri…

This. And don't forget constant nagging about linking everything to a Google or Facebook account.

The web has turned into a nightmare for end users. I hope there will be a popular uprising of some sort, people saying that enough is enough, but I doubt it'll happen. Everyone seems happy about downloading gazillions of individual apps that are little more than wrappers for the web sites, just so the companies can get a better platform for poking around people's phones.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#202

Post by mtgx » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

They're turning the web into a close system, just like Facebook did (kind of), so that later on, when it's too difficult for anyone to leave this closed system, they can also start charging sites just for appearing in the "organic results" -- just like Facebook did.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#203

Post by GcVmvNhBsU » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

pb7 wrote: post #182

solarkraft wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a bunch of own infrastructure and data these days (I have read they don't use Bing at all now). Besides: It's cleaner, faster, has often useful instant answers (random, 10011001 in hex, 1 btc in xmr, 40 stones in kg), bangs (!g for Google, !gh for GitHub, !yt for YouTube, !w for Wikipedia) and actually respects your privacy. I think this feature could be much improved an expanded, but the location context s…

> I have read they don't use Bing at all now Got a link I can take a look at? > We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from a variety of partners, including Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) and Bing.[0] Yahoo is also powered by Bing last I checked. [0] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...

Here’s one: https://trypap.com/

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#204

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

I've been stuck with this for two weeks now, and it's bad enough that for the first time ever I've considered using something other than Google. It's just so much harder for my eyes to read, I feel I can't glaze through the results like I used to (and I believe the old search would often give date for things like stack exchange and Reddit, which helps with a wide variety of issues).

I'm pretty sure for the layout itself I'll eventually just get a tampermonkey script to make it look like the old, but this is the first thing that has truly made me look for a Google alternative. They have severely damaged their main product, in my opinion.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#205

Post by mikelyons » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #17

itamarst wrote: post #2

Perhaps it's worth quoting Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in the original paper on the Google search engine: > "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. ...we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers. " ( http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html ) At th…

They cared not to be evil back then. Now they say they do the right thing, and “right” is subjective.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#206

Post by DeusExMachina » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

SkyBelow wrote: post #148

cco wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only on the end closest to "neutral", past some arbitrary point your subjective opinion on evil stops mattering to people with morals.

Morals are also subjective. Take something pretty far on the other end of the spectrum, killing kids. Now compare to abortion. Lots of different people with lots of different views. What one sees as evil another would see the ban of it as evil.

While I sort of agree with your point, I don't agree with your example.

Almost everyone agrees that killing children is immoral. People in favor of abortion stick to a definition in which abortion is not killing children.

Whether that definition is right or wrong is what is at the center of the debate.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#207

Post by duckmysick » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

nicpottier wrote: post #80

reroute1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I see the same, it's really easy to tell what is an ad and what isn't...

Agree, ads seem clearer than ever to me, the big bold "Ad" is more distinct to me than the previous treatment.

To me, the clearest Google ads had colored background and text "Sponsored Link" on the side.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#208

Post by peterangular » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

mthoms wrote: post #166

bazonker wrote: post #5

Not sure about the facts underlying the analysis. In my search results (and it's important to remember that it's possible you get different results than another user, due to launch experiments and trials) the ads do not have icons. They say "Ad" in bold text. The "organics" results have icons.

But notice how the "Ad" text is specifically formatted (and placed) to resemble a favicon? They're blatantly trying to make the ads and organic results appear uniform to someone quickly scanning the page. As a user, I want the ads more easily distinguishable, not less.

100% - it's a dark pattern and you know exactly why they're doing it: cash money from advertisers.

The internet is slowly being turned into a corporate power grab and it's only getting worse YOY =|

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#209

Post by dvtrn » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

minikites wrote: post #10

itamarst wrote: post #2

Perhaps it's worth quoting Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in the original paper on the Google search engine: > "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. ...we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers. " ( http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html ) At th…

Money can change almost anyone's opinion about almost any subject.

Time for the Upton Sinclair quote?

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#210

Post by SquareWheel » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

arexxbifs wrote: post #194

SquareWheel wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've built browsers, standards, protocols, libraries, and frameworks for the web. They've contributed more to the web than probably any company outside of CERN.

There were browsers, standards, protocols, libraries and frameworks before Google and there is a plethora of them now, too, that have no connection to Google. Without the web, there would be no Google, but without Google, there'd still be plenty of web. Heck, if you want to talk inventions, it was Microsoft who came up with doing XMLRPC inside the browser and actually made a decent web port of Outlook using it. That…

>The only other thing they've accomplished

Not creating an interactive map of the entire globe? Or upgrading email into a tag-based, nearly-infinite inbox? Or transforming the browser's security model into a multi-process, sandboxed application?

It's easy to forget all the things we now take for granted.