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The Age of PageRank Is Over

blog.kagi.com

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Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#271

Post by stevewatson301 »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #75
aabaker99 wrote: post #56

I just signed up and tried it a little bit and I like what I see so far. I find myself increasingly frustrated with Google search results for a particular use case: searching for documentation. For example, today's work had me thinking about Python's datetime and timedelta and I wanted a reference on what functions are available. With Google I am annoyed with results from geeksforgeeks.org and freecodecamp.com becaus…

The blogspam has made Google and Bing/DDG almost completely unusable for technical searches. Go search for something like "postgres cte" and you won't find anything useful until probably halfway down the page. And maybe not at all.

What kind of results do you get when you Google the term? For me, the PostgreSQL documentation[1] came out on the top.

[1] https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/queries-with.html

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#272

Post by croes »

smt88 wrote: post #241
dylan604 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>which is to create a human-curated whitelist-only search engine. You might be interested in watching the series "Halt and Catch Fire".

I'm not interested. Why would I be? I also don't need fiction to know what a human-curated search engine would be like, because I was using the web in the 90s when we had things like Dmoz.

Fiction maybe helps to see another point of view

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#273

Post by matheusmoreira »

lesuorac wrote: post #39
widdershins wrote: post #18

I've been using Kagi the last few months. I've never had a reason to complain about its search results - they seem to work plenty well enough day to day that I don't really 'notice' them. Like most, I now search reflexively, as an extension of the mind, so I only 'notice' search when it's bad. What really excites me is that is that I'm paying them. That sounds odd, but seriously. It's incredibly refreshing to know th…

The economic argument not being watertight is the problem. This is why tech companies keep pivoting to ads, they just didn't make enough money otherwise. Afaik [1], there's about 5 employees and the revenue only covers server expenses while they're still trying to get more headcount. Not an expert on bootstrapping but I'm pretty sure you don't want to expand faster than your revenue does otherwise you stop being able…

> This is why tech companies keep pivoting to ads

The reason they advertise is because they can. It doesn't matter how much money they're making now, they can always make more by advertising. Paying money just makes your attention more valuable. The only way to stop them is to make it impossible or illegal to advertise. Blocking ads everywhere and making no exceptions.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#274

Post by wruza »

cardanome wrote: post #129
widdershins wrote: post #18

I've been using Kagi the last few months. I've never had a reason to complain about its search results - they seem to work plenty well enough day to day that I don't really 'notice' them. Like most, I now search reflexively, as an extension of the mind, so I only 'notice' search when it's bad. What really excites me is that is that I'm paying them. That sounds odd, but seriously. It's incredibly refreshing to know th…

While I am very willing to pay money for a user-centric search engine the requirement to do so directly conflicts with the greatest must-have feature that I need from one: Anonymity. Now the issues is not just privacy but making sure it does NOT optimize search results based on prior searches or other facts it knows about me. Now the big problem is that one would think delivering the exact search results that I am lo…

It can causes me to live in a bubble, blinding me of possible opposing opinions. It is feeding my ignorance.

This made internet completely unusable for discovery. A big shiny window into another tiny room. Absolute BS.

Recently I discussed it here on HN and was advised to like, dislike, subscribe and so on on youtube (things I rarely have done on my old account) to break out of this bubble. Well, it doesn’t work. It just suggests the content I immediately dislike or ban entire channels and it all settles to the same echo chamber as before.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#276

Post by gumby »

fn-mote wrote: post #184
gumby wrote: post #82

Seemed like a perfect opportunity for Apple -- they could give their customers an actually useful search engine subsidized by their hardware sales. At the same time they could starve google and bling of the user data provided by customers using search in safari or siri. Instead they are going the other way. Sad.

Comparing Apple Maps and Google Maps, I don't have much hope of this working out the way you imagine it.

Apple maps started out poorly but these days I prefer it to google maps.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#277

Post by mtsr »

fardo wrote: post #165
widdershins wrote: post #18

I've been using Kagi the last few months. I've never had a reason to complain about its search results - they seem to work plenty well enough day to day that I don't really 'notice' them. Like most, I now search reflexively, as an extension of the mind, so I only 'notice' search when it's bad. What really excites me is that is that I'm paying them. That sounds odd, but seriously. It's incredibly refreshing to know th…

>It's incredibly refreshing to know that the company providing my search results has an incentive to make things better for _me_ and not a legion of advertisers Cable television and netflix have made it quite clear that payment does not mean “no ads”, it just means “no ads, yet”. It still might be a better alternative in the short term, but the moment growth starts to peak, companies follow where the incentives lead…

I think it’s important to consider whether this happens with all companies, or whether venture capital seeking to maximize returns to the detriment of both the business and the user is a factor here.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#278

Post by kqr »

wruza wrote: post #274
cardanome wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am very willing to pay money for a user-centric search engine the requirement to do so directly conflicts with the greatest must-have feature that I need from one: Anonymity. Now the issues is not just privacy but making sure it does NOT optimize search results based on prior searches or other facts it knows about me. Now the big problem is that one would think delivering the exact search results that I am lo…

It can causes me to live in a bubble, blinding me of possible opposing opinions. It is feeding my ignorance. This made internet completely unusable for discovery. A big shiny window into another tiny room. Absolute BS. Recently I discussed it here on HN and was advised to like, dislike, subscribe and so on on youtube (things I rarely have done on my old account) to break out of this bubble. Well, it doesn’t work. It…

I think many platforms optimise for interactions, with no regard for whether they are positive or negative.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#279

Post by pixodaros »

lesuorac wrote: post #39
widdershins wrote: post #18

I've been using Kagi the last few months. I've never had a reason to complain about its search results - they seem to work plenty well enough day to day that I don't really 'notice' them. Like most, I now search reflexively, as an extension of the mind, so I only 'notice' search when it's bad. What really excites me is that is that I'm paying them. That sounds odd, but seriously. It's incredibly refreshing to know th…

The economic argument not being watertight is the problem. This is why tech companies keep pivoting to ads, they just didn't make enough money otherwise. Afaik [1], there's about 5 employees and the revenue only covers server expenses while they're still trying to get more headcount. Not an expert on bootstrapping but I'm pretty sure you don't want to expand faster than your revenue does otherwise you stop being able…

"Enough money" is usually defined by venture capitalists who want ALL THE MONEY and not by normal investors who want a modest predictable return. Patreon, for example, could have been a modestly profitable business which owned itself, but instead they keep flailing and spending lots of other people's money to satisfy the next batch of investors that one day they will be as rich as Google.

Re: The Age of PageRank Is Over

#280

Post by dylan604 »

smt88 wrote: post #268
dylan604 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can be a curmudgeon and not enjoy someone's recommendation for a decent bit of entertainment, or you can say just politely carry on and be a grouch in the living room of your trashcan, or you could maybe try something new and actually consider watching something you haven't seen yet. edit: softened the tone oh so slightly

Sorry, I misinterpreted your suggestion as, "This is not a novel idea, and you should watch how badly it goes when someone on this TV show tries the same thing." I didn't insult you or your suggestion, though. I said I wasn't interested in the show and that it doesn't inform my understanding of the concept. Why did that hurt your feelings enough to make insulting accusations about my personality and character?

"I'm not interested. Why would I be?"

That just reads as a rude way to respond to me. "Why would I be?" Because you just described a plot line of a show. It might be fun to see how someone used that plot to make a show that someone reading HN might actually enjoy.

Both sentences combined also reads as "I am perfectly content in my ways and will not listen to anything anyone might kindly suggest because I know all". Maybe because it's election season, but this unwilling to listen and stonewall is quite tiresome. So maybe just rubbed me the wrong way because of everything else and might not been taken the same way at a different time?

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