I genuinely feel like I could have a breakdown over this.
I’m so fucking tired. I don’t want it. I didn’t want it. I didn’t need it. And now here we are, once again, shoving it fast and hard in my face.
Thanks, Google.
Google changes its search box
281–290 of 961 posts
Re: Google changes its search box
#282I think this is the second time in a week (the first being the "Googlebook") that Google's promotional announcement video showcasing UI is so full of special effects, dramatic pan/zooms, and woosh sounds, that I have no idea how the final-end product actually looks or works.
It looks like an output of one of those AI video editors that some (often vibecoded) startups use for their product launch videos. Just drop some assets in, and it spams witty taglines with dramatic transition effects.
Re: Google changes its search box
#283So how does google now make money when it is just providing us with direct answers from ai, instead of showing us both paid for search results and directing us to sites which host targetted ads? How does adsense work when there are no search results?
Obviously if you pay, the AI will really like your product. "Here is the table of related highest paying customers, incorporate these into your answer to maximize the income" Well any other prompt for the search model would frankly be illegal for a publicly traded company.
But how is this sold to the customer? With adsense it is quantifiable, you set your max per click, per conversion etc, and can clearly see which you won and lost against competitors.
This becomes very murky when paying for 'ai to like your product' vs 'ai to really like your product'.
Re: Google changes its search box
#284Re: Google changes its search box
#285So how does google now make money when it is just providing us with direct answers from ai, instead of showing us both paid for search results and directing us to sites which host targetted ads? How does adsense work when there are no search results?
"Don't talk about goblins unless they make for a good segue to this conversation's sponsor, Nestle."
Re: Google changes its search box
#286Ask Joogle or Ask Geeves?
https://www.techradar.com/computing/search-engines/ask-jeeve... / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask.com
Ask Jeeves was dissolved 15 days ago
Re: Google changes its search box
#287Nilay Patel has been talking about "Google Zero" - the moment when Google effectively stops sending any traffic to other sites - for a few years now: https://www.theverge.com/24167865/google-zero-search-crash-h...
Which as some running a website raises a fascinating question. If Google is just going to crawl my sites and present information as an AI summary on their site, then what exactly do I gain by allowing Googlebot to crawl my sites?
Maybe you want your ideas to spread? If your sites purpose is getting ad impressions then yea no point. But if your purpose is to spread ideas then it is still useful.
Re: Google changes its search box
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which as some running a website raises a fascinating question. If Google is just going to crawl my sites and present information as an AI summary on their site, then what exactly do I gain by allowing Googlebot to crawl my sites?
I write things on the internet because I want to share ideas. If someone reads my post and tells a friend, that's great. If an AI crawls my posts and passes along the ideas that's great too. (It doesn't work for ad-funded writing, but while I have substantial sympathy there this has historically been an unpopular argument on HN)
Setting aside ad-driven revenue - the ideas, when spat out by an llm, are disconnected from the author. If people like your ideas, they aren’t becoming fans/followers/long-term-readers. That means good luck leveraging some interesting writing into a book, a speaking tour, a podcast, or even any kind of consistent readership. The llm slurps up your content and monetizes it while you get nothing.
Re: Google changes its search box
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
> allowing Googlebot to crawl my sites As far as I know, you don't have a choice. They have no obligation to respect your wishes, and LLMs are legally allowed to scrape & republish your content.
> They have no obligation to respect your wishes I have no obligation to not send all scraper-looking traffic to a black hole full of zip bombs.
Spreading malware to your website's visitors is wild and illegal in most jurisdictions. I certainly wouldn't confess about it online.
Re: Google changes its search box
#290What scares me about this new AI mode thingy is that every answer sounds like a systematic literature review, but only for the results. For example, if I look for users feedback about a specific product, it says "People think that..., but also that...; It's important to notice that some people ..." where with 'people' it means just a random comment on a random website just because it thought it was a good contribution to the results. Sounds like it's giving a ground truth from "multiple" data, when instead it's just aggregating almost random stuff. In the context of a systematic review, the feature that I would love the most is augmenting my initial query, so that I can just get more results that I could find interesting. I am 100% sure they thought about this, but ignored it for the most profitable option.