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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?

#521

Post by graphe »

zarzavat wrote: post #483
graphe wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are they now? Yahoo was good before google, but google did change everything. It's as if you brought up the first Motorola phone or blackberry and compared it to the iPhone saying it was just ok.

Google changed everything but nowadays it feels as bad as Yahoo was at the time. Google search is now optimised for ad $$$, not for finding what you're looking for. If Google hadn't existed then maybe we would have got competitiveness in the search space.

It would have been another hegemony. Yahoo was google then. AskJeeves, AltaVista and many others were not ever going to be competition. Yahoo was the stronger one then and it failed.

Who do you think it would have been competitive for?

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

#522

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#524

Post by DiscourseFan »

zirgs wrote: post #456
DiscourseFan wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between ChatGPT and Wikipedia is that Wikipedia actually cites its sources. Also ChatGPT is only knowledgeable about general things, but even there it makes errors. It's basically a very complex scraping algorithm, the more interesting part is the language generation; even then this stuff seems at least unethical if not illegal since it's using other people's work/research without citation.

In many cases Wikipedia's source links are dead. And nobody bothers to update them. Or they cite some random book that I have no way to get and read myself. Who checks if that book actually exists and is not made up? Especially if it's not a highly politically charged topic. And then there are circular citations. Someone posts unverified/false info on wikipedia. Then it gets cited by some blog or other media that wik…

Well at least on Wikipedia you can check those things.

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

#525

Post by riku_iki »

nr2x wrote: post #514
rybosome wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloud operating losses have dropped substantially YoY, and revenue has risen steadily. It is at most a few years from profitability.

The point is Cloud is still 100% subsidized by Search, and if Search loses even 5% of market share in the next 12 mo it is a disaster as GCP cannot fill the gap as they are still losing money. The velocity at which they are losing money is immaterial to the fact they are not nearly ready to plug a hole if Bing take share.

I think cloud's net revenue loss was very small last Q they reported. They may cut on some personal and services and become profitable if decide so.

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

#526

Post by sidewndr46 »

RugnirViking wrote: post #493
dahdum wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's buried near the bottom of the page, but here's your huckleberry: https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-best-chocolate-chip... Lots of trash out there but Serious Eats is good quality.

that site has over six thousand words and maybe 20 screen heights worths of scrolling before you reach the recipie. Its incredible, like some kind of work of art parodying recipie websites I use BBC good food, almost always straight to the point

Cue 7 paragraphs about how when they were on vacation in Ibiza they sought ought the most authentic local chefs and took inspiration from all of them to develop this never-before-seen recipe.

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

#527

Post by qrio2 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #124
qrio2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things that i *know* were parts of the internet, that I could find via google 5-10 years ago are no longer possible to find. I get single page search results sometimes, with not even the capability to keep browsing 'more' pages to see things that may be tangentially related. Google has just decided to not show them at all. Remember when the bottom of the page was "Goooooooooooooooogle" and you could click each "o" to…

Absolutely this. Google has gotten notably worse in just the last two years. Today: * Any term that might be related to a commercial product? That product comes first and frequently only. * Search for two terms? It will first give it's prefer result for each separately - usually commercial products (ha). And then might give them together. * Quoted terms are often taken as vague suggestions. Negative sign is often use…

god, the quoted text suggestion thing is really the nail in the coffin. Used to feel like a wizard showing people how to get exact search results, now... well, that's why we're having this discussion

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

#528

Post by qrio2 »

kogus wrote: post #105
qrio2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things that i *know* were parts of the internet, that I could find via google 5-10 years ago are no longer possible to find. I get single page search results sometimes, with not even the capability to keep browsing 'more' pages to see things that may be tangentially related. Google has just decided to not show them at all. Remember when the bottom of the page was "Goooooooooooooooogle" and you could click each "o" to…

I just checked and sure enough, the clickable Goooooooooogle is still there at the bottom of search results, with ten clickable "o"s.

weird, i must be a/b'd out of that because i just get "more results" endless scrolling, and have for all of recent memory

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

#529

Post by chomp »

LightDub wrote: post #76
chomp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want Google to fall, nothing much more than that. I personally am going to continue using Kagi, but will quietly cheer Microsoft eating Google's lunch.

How old are you? I don't mean this to be offensive. It's just I remember when the same was said about Microsoft when Google was up and coming. I really am getting old ...

Late 30s. Yes I realize that me 20 years ago would find a lot of distaste in my current position. However, from my point of view, Google is causing a lot more present day harm than Microsoft is. Microsoft has been reduced to the point of having to ship Google's browser, and offering products with Linux support. Google is in no such position, and continues to use anti competitive tactics to vertically integrate, to create a landscape that is favorable to their ad machine. I realize that this is an unpopular opinion, but there ya go.

If/when Bing gains dominance and starts abusing its position, I'll probably change positions, but that's the way it goes when there's a lack of competition in the market. You're left cheering for the best of the worst.

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

#530

Post by adfm »

oblio wrote: post #420
victor106 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are evil but I agree that Google is less evil than Microsoft. Just like the OP I have first hand info on how atrocious Microsoft’s internal privacy controls are. The later versions of Windows are just ad space for Microsoft to advertise. Azure is the worst of the 3 cloud providers. Horrible developer experience and documentation and reliability. That said, I would still take Satya’s Microsoft over Balmers any da…

> Both are evil but I agree that Google is less evil than Microsoft. Microsoft is evil v1. Google and everyone post 2000 is evil v2. They are just as evil as Microsoft but they've learned that amongst other things, you need to a) seem nicer and b) lobby politicians. I'd argue that made them more evil. Though it has to be said that Microsoft has learned, too, so at this point they're pretty much the same thing.

It’s not the company so much as it’s the corporate conformists that swarmed the valley. What happens when the carpetbaggers are left holding the bag? Will they actually build things that matter?
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