TikTok algorithm applied to search. “I’m feeling lucky” but with quick swipe up/down user feedback on results.
Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?
21–30 of 332 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?
#22You can't be just a bit better than Google and you certainly can't be worse. It's very difficult to be better than Google, that's an enormous challenge unto itself. That's greater than a billion dollar problem just to get warmed up if you're talking competing with them at large scale. If you listened to HN, Google sucks and it's easy to produce a superior search engine because of how bad they are now. That's false; even if Google's quality has eroded, they are not a mediocre search engine. That notion comes from the same place wherein people proclaim they can create a serious Uber competitor in a weekend (and mysteriously these people never do anything of the sort).
You're going to need a quantum leap improvement over Google to unseat their positioning. It has to be very substantial to overcome all the various moats they have, not least of which is consumers being used to using Google, the brand awareness.
The next great search engine will emerge from a niche and conquer one segment after another from there. It won't be a massive general search engine that shows up one day (which is what the Google watchers have been waiting for forever - that new behemoth comprehensive competitor is never going to arrive fully formed). There's a decent possibility consumer Web search will be a later stage addition to said new niche competitor, consumer Web won't be its primary or initial target. They'll add on general consumer Web search as a "we might as well" offering once they conquer enough niches.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?
#23DDG simply needs to raise awareness that they have a good enough alternative that most people would be happy with if only they knew it existed.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?
#24brave.search is pretty good. BUT it is not the default search engine on most devices. AND google is still better for some specific queries. A competitor must be not as good but much much more better. Don't see it coming, especially it is very expensive to query the whole web.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?
#25Google's competitor in what? As far as search goes they pay billions to device manufacturers and software vendors to have Google as default search everything, how would you compete with this? The actual search functionality, its speed, intuitiveness, etc. of any competitor is irrelevant.
> how would you compete with this?
The implication of OP's question and perhaps the heart of the matter is whether Google is unfairly applying some impediment or anti-competitive behavior. My personal opinion is that they're not. I'm not a software guy so maybe I don't know the facts. I would very much like to be educated on that here, the same way I've tried to educate people here about display industry facts on the ground.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?
#26The problem with monopolies is they can easily purchase serious competitors. That is why we need the government to regulate these companies and spur competition.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?
#27TikTok algorithm applied to search. “I’m feeling lucky” but with quick swipe up/down user feedback on results.
So Stumbleupon
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?
#28Because nobody is writing good benchmarks for search engines. You can't improve something if you can't see what you're doing.
I find it interesting that you mention the word benchmark because reviewers used to rely on benchmarks for new phones and such but then iirc at least OnePlus and Samsung devices have been caught and banned from multiple benchmarks.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?
#29I have a broader answer for this:
By the very nature of solutions: a new company cannot beat google at general search. Google was and is search.
Like a tree that has grown up and shadows the entire land around it. There will be random small pockets of sunlight with smaller plants in it. But the big tree owns the area.
There can be a short term competition via extremely specialized search engines, but they will not rise to the same dominance. Google, in a way, is the entire idea of searching the web.
The next dominant generation has to be from a new paradigm, that makes web search obslete.
---
A relatable current example could be: youtube being dwarfed by tiktok. The nature of the new thing is such that it very naturally dethrones the old thing, without directly competing with the incumbent.
There will be specialized providers like vimeo, But at this point, youtube IS the idea of video on the internet.
---
Just note the context of this understanding: This understanding came from struggling to change the education system of my country. And then it seemed to apply everywhere I saw.
I'll round-off my reply with this quote:
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
– Buckminster Fuller
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?
#30TikTok algorithm applied to search. “I’m feeling lucky” but with quick swipe up/down user feedback on results.
I think this is a neat idea. Google has tried a lot of products and models, but "gamifying" (at least in this sense) search itself isn't one I can recall.