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Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

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Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#111

Post by smt88 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #63
Beltiras wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I might be a target audience for them and willing to pay a nominal fee monthly for good search I'm quite sure there isn't a market for it.

Just 1% of Google's market might be enough to sustain a non-bloated, VC-free company and make a good product. The Bloomberg Terminal is extremely expensive and yet companies pay for it because it makes their traders' jobs so much more efficient. I don't see why companies wouldn't do the same for a search engine that filters out all the bullshit so their employees don't have to waste their time wading through it.

> Just 1% of Google's market

Google has 4.3B users, so 1% of that is 43M. With a $5 subscription, Kagi would have $215M in monthly revenue, enough to pay for 14,000 developer salaries.

A more reasonable target might be 500k users at, let's say, $10/mo.

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#112

Post by Nextgrid »

FredPret wrote: post #108
Nextgrid wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just 1% of Google's market might be enough to sustain a non-bloated, VC-free company and make a good product. The Bloomberg Terminal is extremely expensive and yet companies pay for it because it makes their traders' jobs so much more efficient. I don't see why companies wouldn't do the same for a search engine that filters out all the bullshit so their employees don't have to waste their time wading through it.

1% of people who use Google is a hell of a lot. Also, Bloomberg doesn’t just search, it also provides data

Categorized search results are also data. Bloomberg is no different to Google in this regard, it doesn't generate the data, it just fetches and aggregates market data from various sources which anyone could technically do with enough effort and yet people pay for it.

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#113

Post by jjulius »

svnpenn wrote: post #99
greybox wrote: post #70

I switched to using kagi.com a while ago, and I've never looked back. I've tried to use duckduckgo before but just ended up using '!g' most of the time. Kagi is in a whole other league. It's on par with, if not better than google search. I highly recommend it. When they introduce the paid tier I'm sure as hell going to subscribe to it. At this point I would trade my Netflix subscription for it.

Please stop pushing some site thats still in beta, AND requires a login.

Why?

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#114

Post by dstroot »

baggachipz wrote: post #13

Google is so unbearable because they are no longer interested in you finding the answer to your query; they're interested in selling your query and its context to the highest bidder. That conflict of interest manifests in what Google has become.

I still use Google every day. I was really hoping this advice was for real. Like maybe how to filter your Web results by size since they started off with example of a 9 MB website maybe you could filter your queries down to websites that are 2 MB or less? Since I use pi.hole and the first results are ads my top links are always dead. It is time to switch - Is DDG the best alternative?

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#115

Post by dec0dedab0de »

baggachipz wrote: post #13

Google is so unbearable because they are no longer interested in you finding the answer to your query; they're interested in selling your query and its context to the highest bidder. That conflict of interest manifests in what Google has become.

I think a subscription model could succeed for a niche group of people if the price was right, and the quality was good enough.

Also, I think Google could make a ton of money if they sold one ad per language at a time. As in, for the next 5 minutes the ad for all English speaking users will be for coca-cola, and then it will be for boscovs. Just like TV ads.

That is to say, a search engine could sell advertising without betraying it's users or compromising its own quality. It is possible, but would need constant vigilance against the temptations of greed.

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#117

Post by Ensorceled »

svnpenn wrote: post #99
greybox wrote: post #70

I switched to using kagi.com a while ago, and I've never looked back. I've tried to use duckduckgo before but just ended up using '!g' most of the time. Kagi is in a whole other league. It's on par with, if not better than google search. I highly recommend it. When they introduce the paid tier I'm sure as hell going to subscribe to it. At this point I would trade my Netflix subscription for it.

Please stop pushing some site thats still in beta, AND requires a login.

I know you are getting downvoted here ... but there are multiple mentions of Kagi in the comments, so it struck me too.

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#118

Post by mark_l_watson »

Beltiras wrote: post #45
baggachipz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Kagi[1] in private beta; they plan to launch a subscription model very soon. I hope it works out. [1] https://kagi.com/faq

While I might be a target audience for them and willing to pay a nominal fee monthly for good search I'm quite sure there isn't a market for it.

I am using their beta search service. It does seem nice enough. I am not sure yet how it compares with DDG, but I am probably going to sign up as a paying customer.

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#119

Post by [deleted] »

chii wrote: post #79
mojuba wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought the same, but it would be unfair to web sites that are actual web apps and are JS-heavy. Google is hopeless anyway, so here's something for the next search engine that wants to bring back the Web: downrank by the number of 3rd party domain requests, attempts of tracking, and possibly also popups.

How would one detect what is a popup and what is an interactive dialog that the user actually desires?

[deleted]

Re: Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it

#120

Post by mrweasel »

baggachipz wrote: post #13

Google is so unbearable because they are no longer interested in you finding the answer to your query; they're interested in selling your query and its context to the highest bidder. That conflict of interest manifests in what Google has become.

There are only two choices. Either Google are no longer interested in finding the best answers to your queries. Or as you point out: They don't care, that is no longer what they do.

I cannot imagine it being easy, but I find it hard to believe that Google aren't able to weed out the worst offenders. For a large number of queries the results are all SEO spam. Try searching for anything related to health and get a useful result. It's no longer possible.

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