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Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

economist.com

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Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#441

Post by pffft8888 »

college_physics wrote: post #425

It is depressing that people dont recognize that Google has invented and perfected a parasitic business model that has destroyed the internet (and much of tech with it) and this episode feels like just another turn of the downward spiral. The article aims to offer a preliminary analysis of whether Microsoft can become a better parasite: Grabbing the content people generate online, paying nothing, and using it deftly…

"sitting around like sheep discussing whether a new butcher is about to get sharper knive"

Speaking of that, I might as well provide some supprting evidence from a different part of the tech industry. Most people don't know that right now Blackrock and Coinbase are attempting a coup on the US dollar by seeking access to central bank liability for their stable coin? The Coinbase CEO even said it out loud that this year his stable coin will become the de facto central bank digital currency. I suspect that they have indirectly bribed someone at the Fed (how else does that work? esp since the Fed chairmen has come out strongly against stablecoins) and are basically trying to get the ability to get Fed loans at the Fed rate and loan out at the commercial bank rate without being a bank and by using a coin which they can mint themselves, so all the profits from interest create more reserves and the cycle keeps going. It is literally insane. The threat from Google and Microsoft to society pales in comparison. I may not have my understanding 100% correct but all banks are up in arms about it and the average person on HN has no clue this is happening. Just Google Blackrock, USDC and the Fed. The banks are calling it a backdoor CBDC.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#442

Post by ideamotor »

The problem for Google is that they've already taken a ChatGPT approach of providing inaccurate information. The feature snippets are basically proto-ChatGPT, and as the internet has gained content, most of the top links are also inaccurate. You basically have to append a specific Website to your search to get anything decent.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#443

Post by wruza »

erklik wrote: post #235
revskill wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not much about Microsoft. At least it improved human life in serious ways (Typescript, VSCode,...). What did Google bring to my life ? Nothing except for spam stuffs from Ad, Email,... You're responsible for your data, not Google, not Microsoft.

Uh... Maps? Open, Permissive phone OS compared to the alternative? Greatest entertainment/information system, especially one that's democraticsed producing media? In terms dev-related stuff, TensorFlow - literally something that's made today's ML possible, Kubernetes, BigTable, MapReduce, and yknow, that good old thing called Chrome.. I understand hating on Google. They're not that great, but none of the FAANG are "g…

Search alone has changed the entire way that humans consume information.

I believe this thread would have a much less dramatic headline if Google didn’t itself kill Google Search ten+ years ago.

Also, it bought most of the examples listed, not made these. It just saw an ads/dm opportunity.

I also remember using Opera on its last original engine and those “Get Chrome” banners which made a whole browser freeze and stutter on anything but Chrome. I’ve pointed that out a few times back then on forums, but not too many people noticed it, it seems. The “our ads our performance” trick fled completely under the radar.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#444

Post by azangru »

fithisux wrote: post #438
azangru wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is depressing that people dont recognize that Google has invented and perfected a parasitic business model ... The article aims to offer a preliminary analysis of whether Microsoft can become a better parasite In this model, are end users who use it to search for information parasites as well? After all, they are consuming content that other people generate online, and usually pay nothing for it. And they love t…

Google is there to put tolls. This is a parasitic model by definition. Search should be democratized by governments. It is central and should be for everybody. No control.

> Search should be democratized by governments. It is central and should be for everybody. No control.

I am confused. Are you suggesting that governments should nationalize the search part of Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, etc.? Or that they should build their own high-quality search engines? And what do we do until they have?

> No control.

Why do you think governments wouldn't control search engines if they were responsible for providing them?

> It is central and should be for everybody

How is the current model (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, etc.) not for everybody?

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#446

Post by bobsil1 »

foobiekr wrote: post #333
rconti wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Smelly hills of Shoreline" doesn't have quite the same ring to it

Truly for that you want to head to Milpitas. I wonder how the economist would describe that. “The fragrant town of Milpitas, adjacent to the unappreciated Asbestos Gem of Alviso…”

“… with that salt pond stink”

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#447

Post by college_physics »

azangru wrote: post #434
college_physics wrote: post #425

It is depressing that people dont recognize that Google has invented and perfected a parasitic business model that has destroyed the internet (and much of tech with it) and this episode feels like just another turn of the downward spiral. The article aims to offer a preliminary analysis of whether Microsoft can become a better parasite: Grabbing the content people generate online, paying nothing, and using it deftly…

> It is depressing that people dont recognize that Google has invented and perfected a parasitic business model ... The article aims to offer a preliminary analysis of whether Microsoft can become a better parasite In this model, are end users who use it to search for information parasites as well? After all, they are consuming content that other people generate online, and usually pay nothing for it. And they love t…

> usually pay nothing for it

Users pay with their data. That is the whole point of the business model and it is obviously lucrative enough so that the entire tech infrastructure (devices, OS, browsers etc) can be repurposed to be a user data collection channel. If you want to find a real accomplice that is essential for the model to work, it is not the users, it is the advertisers. It takes two to tango in the adtech market.

I don't dispute that search (in its various incarnations) is an essential service in a digitally interconnected world. There are countless ways to pay for it (as a digital public good, as a user subscription etc) that are fundamentally better than what we have. It is also obviously true that some decades ago Google innovated technically. A lot happened since and it wasn't positive. Normalizing it simply prolongs the agony.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#448

Post by bobsil1 »

eclipxe wrote: post #242
ajdoingnothing wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Heck, even the current 'waiting list' page (bing.com/new) looks so outdated and a mess. I don't know whether it is the font, the colors, the composition or margins.. Bing itself looks like a mess too. Microsoft truly has no taste.

And the spammy "set your default to Bing to get priority access". Ugh. It's still MS.

Windows getting into adware was like the raptor escaping the electrified fence

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#449

Post by linux-user »

fithisux wrote: post #438
azangru wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is depressing that people dont recognize that Google has invented and perfected a parasitic business model ... The article aims to offer a preliminary analysis of whether Microsoft can become a better parasite In this model, are end users who use it to search for information parasites as well? After all, they are consuming content that other people generate online, and usually pay nothing for it. And they love t…

Google is there to put tolls. This is a parasitic model by definition. Search should be democratized by governments. It is central and should be for everybody. No control.

Nobody prevents government(s) from creating a search engine. Actually nobody stops anyone from creating a search engine. Also nobody stops anybody from using another search engine. The internet is the most level playing field and is more competitive than any other industry. Nowhere else is it as easy to create something new as a business and to switch services as a customer. If anything it's the customers fault and by extension a lack of education. So if you want to blame government then blame it for keeping its people dumb. And there you actually have a point.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#450

Post by silisili »

deeviant wrote: post #406
hgsgm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. Google Search already has lots of useful AI already in it, but Google didn't want to integrate a racist, confabulating chatbot, forgetting that modern users have no preference for truth over lies. Why are you blaming Google for not being perfect while making the best free search engine, after you spent your whole life refusing to pay for a non-free one?

Let's be clear, the reason Google didn't want to jump into conversation search is because it invalidates large portions of their business model. At best they want to avoid bad publicity of their tech just being bad enough to throw out racist remarks. But the company who dropped "don't be evil" from their mission statement, and who fired AI ethics researchers for their research in AI bias that Google did not like is n…

> who fired AI ethics researchers for their research in AI bias that Google did not like

I'm no fan of Google, but this seriously glosses over a rather complex situation. A paper may have been the catalyst, but I'd argue definitely not the reason for the firings. You can't just demand things with the threat of quitting, then act surprised when you're terminated.

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