What If Google Wasn't the Default?
matt-rickard.com
What If Google Wasn't the Default?
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Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?
#2The fascination with Apple developing their own search is a little weird. That is not direction we'd want to go in. It seems that we'd be better of if the companies providing search was different from the device maker or operating systems and browser developers.
Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?
#3FWIW, the initial versions of Chrome did not have Google as the default search provider - the first run experience had a dialog that made you choose between the top three search engines in your locale
Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?
#4FWIW, the initial versions of Chrome did not have Google as the default search provider - the first run experience had a dialog that made you choose between the top three search engines in your locale
All of those choices were bought in and had to pay the most amount for that region to win.
Google later even refused to say what the competitors were paying for that rank, so they probably just overbid themselves for a while now.
Note that they do this for Android, too.
Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?
#5The fascination with Apple developing their own search is a little weird. That is not direction we'd want to go in. It seems that we'd be better of if the companies providing search was different from the device maker or operating systems and browser developers.
Agreed. Apple has the resources to go into a lot of businesses they don’t necessarily want to be in and they seem happy enough with the Google arrangement. They like to own and control the technologies core to their products, but even they have to draw a line otherwise they’d be building and running their own fabs.
Plus Microsoft also has a lot of money and talent and have been in the search business a very long time. Bing still sucks. Windows Live Search sucked before it, and MSN search before that. There’s no guarantee Apple could meet or beat the threshold of being at least as good as Google, only that they could, technically, if they wanted to, develop their own, and then they would be the ones the DOJ is going after over the default search engine in Safari (not to mention the punks on the EC would probably find some new law to craft targeting Apple, so it had really better be worth the investment if they were ever going to build a search engine because the price for doing so is going up).
Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?
#6The fascination with Apple developing their own search is a little weird. That is not direction we'd want to go in. It seems that we'd be better of if the companies providing search was different from the device maker or operating systems and browser developers.
Yes, it also would misaligns their incentives. I like (love) that Apple is NOT in the advertising business and fewer phd engineers obsess about how they can make me click/view more ads.
Maybe Kagi proofs that "search" could also be financed by a premium subscription? Or being a system service which is subsidized like Siri? But I think the ad-model is the most easiest/profitable for search so there is always a pull to it.
Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?
#7The fascination with Apple developing their own search is a little weird. That is not direction we'd want to go in. It seems that we'd be better of if the companies providing search was different from the device maker or operating systems and browser developers.
Agreed. Apple has the resources to go into a lot of businesses they don’t necessarily want to be in and they seem happy enough with the Google arrangement. They like to own and control the technologies core to their products, but even they have to draw a line otherwise they’d be building and running their own fabs. Plus Microsoft also has a lot of money and talent and have been in the search business a very long time…
The other thing is that it's not clear what differentiation, if any, Apple could possibly want to target in Search.
Apple Maps is sometimes nicer to use than Google Maps, but also was developed because at one point Google refused to give Apple turn-by-turn navigation, which would make it hard to sell iPhones as a phone with equal GPS capabilities as Android. There isn't really a search function that Apple needs and does not get via Google.
Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?
#8If potential antitrust case againts Google search would be valid, could it be mitigated with Google making google search as a platform?
For example another company could run google search on example.com and give let's say percentage of that revenue back to Google?
Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?
#9Google is quite sticky indeed. Having tried a few alternatives, I keep coming back to it because it helps me get things done the fastest. It would be relatively easy for Apple to switch their default search engine, but quite difficult to switch it to something better. That said I hope they do, and I hope to see more and better search engine competitors in the future.
Re: What If Google Wasn't the Default?
#10The fascination with Apple developing their own search is a little weird. That is not direction we'd want to go in. It seems that we'd be better of if the companies providing search was different from the device maker or operating systems and browser developers.
Isn't the obvious reason that search is perhaps the best service to sell ads for? And Apple has the benefit that the cult would be extatic to be walled off even tighter.