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Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

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Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#41

Post by _aavaa_ »

jchw wrote: post #14

Google is probably screwed without it. Even if ad-tech isn't exactly a bubble, I strongly believe it is overvalued even still. Furthermore, the product that made their name is thoroughly lost. I dread Google Search today. If I found something on Google yesterday, I have no idea if I'll be able to locate it through the sea of blog SPAM and SEO garbage tomorrow. Google web search strongly favors big websites when somet…

I agree, which is why manually blacklisting them became a necessity for me. I loved uBlocklist, and would recommend it for anyone not on Kagi.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublacklist/pncfbmi...

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#42

Post by randmeerkat »

smallerfish wrote: post #26
jchw wrote: post #14

Google is probably screwed without it. Even if ad-tech isn't exactly a bubble, I strongly believe it is overvalued even still. Furthermore, the product that made their name is thoroughly lost. I dread Google Search today. If I found something on Google yesterday, I have no idea if I'll be able to locate it through the sea of blog SPAM and SEO garbage tomorrow. Google web search strongly favors big websites when somet…

Almost a meme at this point: > I am not trying to suggest Duck Duck Go or Bing are actually better overall Kagi is, however. Well worth putting your money where your mouth is and supporting them.

So, I googled Kagi, found their link… Not only is it required to create an account to use their service, they want a credit card to bill as well! Hard pass.

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#43

Post by Forgeties79 »

jchw wrote: post #14

Google is probably screwed without it. Even if ad-tech isn't exactly a bubble, I strongly believe it is overvalued even still. Furthermore, the product that made their name is thoroughly lost. I dread Google Search today. If I found something on Google yesterday, I have no idea if I'll be able to locate it through the sea of blog SPAM and SEO garbage tomorrow. Google web search strongly favors big websites when somet…

> I have no idea if I'll be able to locate it through the sea of blog SPAM and SEO garbage tomorrow

If I have to sift through one more useless AI-generated/copy-paste article where they spend half the damn thing explaining the most basic stuff and then still not answering my question (or giving a simple "yes/no"), I'm going to lose it. It's not even just technical answers. I have to basically type "...reddit" or some forum I like to get ANYTHING useful anymore. It's even just basic media questions.

Example: "Is there an [IP sequel] being made?"

First 20 results: "Is there an [IP sequel] being made? Read more to find out. First what is IP? IP was released in 2012. It was made by such and such starring such and such as they go on an adventure to do the thing..." 4 paragraphs later "There is no information on a sequel. Thanks for reading!"

Yes I've learned to spot these as have most folks around here I imagine, but holy hell they will eat 2-3 pages of results sometimes! It's infuriating!

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#44

Post by dylan604 »

titzer wrote: post #9

I'm not so sure AI is as big a threat as Google perceives it to be; back in 2009 the HUGE EXISTENTIAL THREAT was Social, therefore Google+, but that came and went and Google's growth continued unabated. That said, I do see a place for language-model driven search. And I shudder to think that language models will be specifically coerced, bribed, and have ingrained in their brains only what advertisers want. If you tho…

If Google is so afraid of AI, then they should have done the most Googley of things in building AI into Google to get everyone use to it, then drop it. Deprecate the crap out of it like all of the other things. Then, since Googs dropped, it must not be good right? Boom! problem solved

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#46

Post by lordnacho »

jchw wrote: post #14

Google is probably screwed without it. Even if ad-tech isn't exactly a bubble, I strongly believe it is overvalued even still. Furthermore, the product that made their name is thoroughly lost. I dread Google Search today. If I found something on Google yesterday, I have no idea if I'll be able to locate it through the sea of blog SPAM and SEO garbage tomorrow. Google web search strongly favors big websites when somet…

I use search for coding a lot, and lately I've noticed it's hard to find what I'm after. If I'm looking for some small thing like what an sftp command looks like, I don't want an SEO essay about why SSH is great and we should all use encryption. I just want the example line.

This seems to be what ChatGPT can give me. It doesn't always work, but it also doesn't beat around the bush.

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#47

Post by Zigurd »

titzer wrote: post #9

I'm not so sure AI is as big a threat as Google perceives it to be; back in 2009 the HUGE EXISTENTIAL THREAT was Social, therefore Google+, but that came and went and Google's growth continued unabated. That said, I do see a place for language-model driven search. And I shudder to think that language models will be specifically coerced, bribed, and have ingrained in their brains only what advertisers want. If you tho…

TBF Google found they already owned a first-tier social network. It was disguised as a video sharing site.

The article quotes someone as saying history repeats itself. Debatable. Google built Alphabet to be defensible against antitrust cases like this. Expect a consent decree.

As you wrote: "I do see a place for language-model driven search." And unlike social media this has less dependency on user perception of whether a social network is cool.

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#48

Post by aeturnum »

titzer wrote: post #9

I'm not so sure AI is as big a threat as Google perceives it to be; back in 2009 the HUGE EXISTENTIAL THREAT was Social, therefore Google+, but that came and went and Google's growth continued unabated. That said, I do see a place for language-model driven search. And I shudder to think that language models will be specifically coerced, bribed, and have ingrained in their brains only what advertisers want. If you tho…

I agree about AI, though for slightly different reasons. Google published the foundational paper for some of the most important tech behind the exciting AI stuff[1]. Because there's every reason to believe they are technically capable of competing, the reason they aren't offering AI products is probably based on their beliefs about how practical that is right now (cost / reliability / etc). They also have all their Waymo experience.

Basically, I'm not convinced that Google is "behind" on the tech, but just disagrees about product strategy. Obviously there are lots of examples where this dooms the current leader (Xerox Parc!) - but I think it's too early to say? I wouldn't short them yet imo.

[1] https://ai.googleblog.com/2017/08/transformer-novel-neural-n...

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#49

Post by dylan604 »

smoldesu wrote: post #34
SCHiM wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently asked gpt to give me a markdown table of the continents, their landmass and their populations. I checked the numbers and they matched wikipedia. Google gave me listicles instead...

I recently asked ChatGPT to multiply 2 numbers together. Every search engine I tried yielded a product, except ChatGPT which gave me an excuse. They're useful in their own right, but you can't fool yourself into believing either one cannibalizes the other.

curious what the excuse was.

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#50

Post by smoldesu »

spijdar wrote: post #37
jchw wrote: post #14

Google is probably screwed without it. Even if ad-tech isn't exactly a bubble, I strongly believe it is overvalued even still. Furthermore, the product that made their name is thoroughly lost. I dread Google Search today. If I found something on Google yesterday, I have no idea if I'll be able to locate it through the sea of blog SPAM and SEO garbage tomorrow. Google web search strongly favors big websites when somet…

> The only thing I really have any strong affection for is YouTube, and the people and content that made the platform special are constantly unhappy with it's corporate direction, not to mention the utter lack of support, claiming and affirming in appeals stupid pointless crap like "you said a naughty word in the first ten seconds of the video" when anyone with working ears can easily verify they did not. This is mos…

> the alternatives involve... no (automatic) monetization at all.

This is 100% what it boils down to. Google is obviously not the only advertiser in town, but if the ad bubble pops, so does the free content economy on the internet. Some people will argue the internet would be better because of it, but the transition away from ad-supported viewership would decimate the web we know.

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