Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image • Hacker News Board

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#51

Post by hungryhobbit » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 11:19 PM UTC

Can we be honest here? This isn't (really) Google's fault, because ANY company in the same position would do the same. It's our fault, for letting them.

We could pass a law preventing this nonsense tomorrow, and Google would have no choice in the matter. However, "we the people" don't have strong advocates fighting for us, while Google has both (very strong) legal and political contributions (ie. bribery) teams ensuring that never happens.

The real problem here is that we've ceded our democracy to corporations: blaming Google (or any individual corporation) is missing the real issue.

P.S. But, the good news is ... we can always take our democracy back.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#52

Post by gdulli » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 11:20 PM UTC

jensenbox wrote: post #3

Too bad I cannot zoom into the image in my phone. Even tapping on it does not enable me to really see it much larger.

Android Firefox and its various forks (I use Waterfox) have a setting that allows zoom on all sites.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#53

Post by zugi » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 11:20 PM UTC

hwc wrote: post #40

amatecha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had to dig up this link, 1999 review[0]: "Google (www.google.com) is a pure search engine - no weather, no news feed, no links to sponsors, no ads, no distractions, no portal litter. Nothing but a fast-loading search site. Reward them with a visit." [0] https://i.redd.it/uea6u7c4oje31.jpg

How did they make any money at all without ads?

Volume.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#54

Post by homebrewer » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 11:20 PM UTC

jensenbox wrote: post #3

Too bad I cannot zoom into the image in my phone. Even tapping on it does not enable me to really see it much larger.

You can usually force enable zoom in browser accessibility settings.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#55

Post by thrownawayohman » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 11:20 PM UTC

freediver wrote: post #7

They still get away with it as ‘only’ 1% complain and Google thinks they don’t matter. We built our entire company for that 1%.

[flagged]

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#56

Post by hobs » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 11:21 PM UTC

svat wrote: post #33

For what it's worth, when you view a Google search results page, part of the page is populated by ads (results come from the Google Ads teams) and part of it by search results (results come from the Google Search team, and unaffected by anything to do with ads). The post points out a problem with the fraction that is allocated to Ads, but pretty sure that's not "everything that's wrong with Google Search" (if true, i…

Not really, its just a condemnation of the amalgamation which is unable to be perceived as different from the user - it shits on the organic search in their mind and anyone saying "well our search is still good!" is completely missing the point.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#57

Post by doublerabbit » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 11:21 PM UTC

peab wrote: post #44

hwc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did they make any money at all without ads?

they didn't - hence the ads

I remember being clever at school and showing off that if you typed "nukes" it would display an advert for ebay down the right-side. "Buy Nukes on EBay".

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#58

Post by LorenDB » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 11:21 PM UTC

beckthompson wrote: post #20

Its sad but I think at this point its kind of a safety issue not to use an ad blocker. Those results are not clearly ads and I've clicked on fake links in the past when they were.

You also should just stop using Google Search. DuckDuckGo is solid, or if you don't want to use search results from Bing's index, I've been very happy with Brave Search.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#59

Post by justapassenger » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 11:22 PM UTC

peab wrote: post #44

hwc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did they make any money at all without ads?

they didn't - hence the ads

It's a very common story in industry. You start nimble, and disrupt bloated platforms. Then, as you grow, pressure grows and you also bloat. Then new company comes that brings nimble product and disrupt you.

Search, TV->internet video, newspapers->internet - all of them go through those cycles.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#60

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 11:22 PM UTC

beckthompson wrote: post #20

Its sad but I think at this point its kind of a safety issue not to use an ad blocker. Those results are not clearly ads and I've clicked on fake links in the past when they were.

All of the ad links are broken by our firewall at work. People complain but eventually they learn to skip the ads. Absolutely a security risk, search ads are second only to phishing emails as a threat vector.