The man who killed Google Search? • Hacker News Board

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#121

Post by spitfire » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #13

This is a bit long and histrionical in a ways that can make it seem to lack credibility, at times -- easiest example: maybe there was a joke in 2008 that "Code Yellow" was named after a lead's tanktop. But it's very much what you'd think, there's a "Code Red" and "Code Yellow" and Code Red is DEFCON 1, not Code Yellow. Shorthand for signalling "this is your manager^3 saying its okay to work on this, in case your mana…

> relative to those old dunderheads babbling their opinions about users.

Why did I read this in Connie Sacks' voice talking to George Smiley (The Alec Guinness one)?

I'm sure they'll get Karla (Raghavan), in the end. It's his fanaticism that will do him in.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#122

Post by taco_emoji » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

arromatic wrote: post #94

riku_iki wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they have much more money than they really need for everyday happiness.

100 billion (round figured) isn't a lot when you are going to create a new large company or invent fusion or fix climate .

why are you assuming they care to do any of those things?

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#123

Post by dandy23 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

rrrix1 wrote: post #104

It's April 23rd, 2024, and I am still looking for a good, reliable, honest and simple search engine. All I want to do is search. No AI. No ads. No shopping. Please don't "Answer my question." I enjoy doing my own original research, thanks. I'm entirely willing - wanting even - to pay for it. Currently Kagi has my $, but I'm saddened and frustrated that they're not even focused on Search, they're focused on AI[1] and…

Kagi is still a good search engine though. Hopefully they continue to improve that part too, even if they do AI stuff.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#124

Post by riku_iki » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

arromatic wrote: post #116

riku_iki wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have impression they just enjoy their billioners lives, and do not have ambitions anymore. Also Larry has some sickness, so, maybe he has other life issues depending on his current condition.

Do you have a link ?

https://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-was-diagnosed-wit...

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#125

Post by taco_emoji » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #35

I think this article would work better if it were written entirely like textbook traditional investigative journalism. And less like the modern TV opinion personality, or the random strong-opinion Web comments in which many of the rest of us (including myself) indulge.

this is such a tiresome criticism. "this would be better if it were more boring" yeah okay and 4 people would read it and 2 of them would fall asleep during

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#126

Post by xkbarkar » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

TechDebtDevin wrote: post #84

neilv wrote: post #35

I think this article would work better if it were written entirely like textbook traditional investigative journalism. And less like the modern TV opinion personality, or the random strong-opinion Web comments in which many of the rest of us (including myself) indulge.

I was strongly motivated to upvote and share this article. I probably upvote and share 1/500 articles I read on this website. So I disagree, I think his tone helps convey how the bulk of people feel about Google's search product and gives us a name to actually blame. Whereas every other blog writes about the decline of Google with a sad tone underwritten with nostalgia and always fails to provide any sort of root cau…

Yeah I agree. The personal tone makes it clear that this is the authors’ opinion and not unbiased fact. I thoroughly enjoyed the article and the writing style. Excellent job.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#127

Post by fidotron » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:44 PM UTC

arromatic wrote: post #22

Question : Why larry and brin not caring about it ? They built one of world's best and biggest company and it's dying . Even if they did not care about that , their money is still tied to google stock right ? That should raise some concern from them.

I have long suspected there is more to it than that, the giveaway being that once you are in what is currently the Alphabet level executive group a fundamentally different set of rules and standards are applied compared to what is considered allowed in Google, and these two did not used to be so divergent. This is a far dirtier game than many want to accept.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#128

Post by rideontime » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:44 PM UTC

autokad wrote: post #119

rrrix1 wrote: post #104

It's April 23rd, 2024, and I am still looking for a good, reliable, honest and simple search engine. All I want to do is search. No AI. No ads. No shopping. Please don't "Answer my question." I enjoy doing my own original research, thanks. I'm entirely willing - wanting even - to pay for it. Currently Kagi has my $, but I'm saddened and frustrated that they're not even focused on Search, they're focused on AI[1] and…

honestly, 99% of the time I don't need search. I want AI. I don't want to have to use a weird syntax to 'talk to a search engine'. sometimes I don't even know what the word is that I am searching for. I want something I can just ... talk to. I use to use search every day, now I use it about once a month.

As somebody who uses "weird syntaxes" to create applications every day, I like having the option to use a specific language that offers the ability to more precisely describe the parameters of my search.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#129

Post by bitcharmer » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:44 PM UTC

morphentropic wrote: post #82

potatolicious wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely speculation of course, but based on what they've been up to since letting go of the reigns of Google: because squeezing every possible drop of revenue out of the product helps fund the things they're now more interested in engaging in (self-driving, longevity, etc.) The cynical assumption would be that they're just sitting on the extremely vast hoards of money and greedy for more. The (slightly) less cynical a…

Man they used to drop some awesome stuff: Google Maps, GMail (remember the hype over Gmail invites?), Google Earth... then they just stopped improving stuff and started releasing multiple versions of things and abandoned them all, over and over again. Very strange.

Not that strange if you think about the nature of transformation Google went through. With time they grew, hired more administrative staff and executives with fetish for growth and shareholder value which caused a fundamental shift in incentives and they reduced themselves from an innovative tech shop to an ad selling business. Sad but common and as old as Jack Welch style capitalism where engineering excellence gives way to corporate greed.

Re: The man who killed Google Search?

#130

Post by KaoruAoiShiho » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:45 PM UTC

While entertaining it doesn't actually say anything about what the villain guy actually did, am I crazy? There's 2 serious charges he levied to google.

1. Ads look more like results.

2. Google results got more useless spam.

While 1 is kinda icky it's not that big of a deal, especially since I use an adblocker... and for 2 why does the author think this is the fault of google? Does shittier results increase in more people using google? I feel like it's the opposite, this doesn't seem right to me. Can it not just be that spammers and SEO freaks got more sophisticated and the problem got more challenging?