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Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#171

Post by MarkPNeyer »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #160
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we fix this loop in companies? It is a very serious problem for humanity’s future. It exists in government too. How do we reward long-term thinking and decisions?

A lot of the most egregious, society-warping behavior by monstrous-sized companies is due to paying execs with stock. It was a salary tax avoidance maneuver that started in the 80's, and has led to 1) absolute fixation on short-term stock price, and 2) (also to that end) stock buybacks. Many of our largest corporations have used recent stimulus moneys to fund buybacks like it was sex or something. All it has been is…

Or we need money they can’t be created via debt.

Issuing debt to buy back shares is a strategy that works great when interest rates are very very low.

But when the money supply is scarce, only so much leverage can exist, so issuing debt to buy shares would be far far riskier.

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#172

Post by berkes »

wooque wrote: post #150
qzx_pierri wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so tired of seeing people recommend Brave. Firefox is what the web needs. Organizational shenanigans aside, Firefox is the best browser on the market right now.

Brave works, Firefox don't, simple as. I tried Firefox numerous times and I always stumble upon glitches, and it still measurable slower. Chromium won, deal with it.

It isn't slower. Not measurably, nor in feeling. Where do you get this?

It's also not faster, if that is what you read in my comment: Chrome/ium and Firefox keep improving. And depending on what month and what benchmark, one will outperform the other. Slightly.

It could be anecdotal? For any of both browsers, though. E.g. some plugins/addons will slow down the browser significant. Or usage specific? Maybe one handles having 2000 tabs open better than the other? Or page-specific?

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#174

Post by berkes »

karussell wrote: post #142
thih9 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who still using chrome? According to statcounter[1], Chrome had 65.52% of the browser market share in August 2022. [1]: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share

I just wanted to nit-pick and state that this includes mobile (ie. Android) but on Desktop it is not better (67.33%) as Safari is not that strong there. And Firefox still loses on Desktop (0.5% compared to last year). Wow.

Safari isn't available for Windows or Linux. So that is one important reason for its low desktop usage.

(And which also shows that this "Apple is protecting Browser Diversity by not allowing another browser on iOS" narrative is wrong: Without even improving Safari, by "just" supporting it on Windows and Linux, they would move the needle for browser diversity)

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#175

Post by bl4ck_goku »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #168
wooque wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave works, Firefox don't, simple as. I tried Firefox numerous times and I always stumble upon glitches, and it still measurable slower. Chromium won, deal with it.

Brave is super shady by default due to their cryptocurrency associations, and also has made several questionable decisions in the past (see: hijacking your URL bar and replacing it with an affiliate link). Firefox is the superior browser, but if you must use Chromium I strongly suggest ungoogled-chromium over Brave.

Also, if you check the changelogs in brave every release all you're going to find is "crypto" or "wallet" in each of the changelog they mention.

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#176

Post by Caboose8685 »

thih9 wrote: post #135

I suspect ungoogled-chromium[1] is not affected by google's changes to chrome://newtab . If anyone wants to stop using Chrome but isn't drawn to any of the alternatives, perhaps you'll like ungoogled-chromium. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungoogled-chromium

It's worth noting that UGC has some significant security regressions

https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#177

Post by huijzer »

> Google has historically been protective of their front page, why now?

Probably for the same reason that Google is shutting down Stadia [1] and cutting staff [2], and the same reason that we see roughly one announcement of layoffs here on Hacker News every week: most people expect that we are going into a recession. For example, see the price of major indexes like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ and plot it on a 10+ year timescale.

What surprises me the most actually is how quickly Google can adapt to the situation. Basically, they have been giving out candy for free when there was lots of money coming and now that they expect less, they quickly put on extra income streams and cut out money losers.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33022768

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32927848

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#178

Post by bushbaba »

huijzer wrote: post #177

> Google has historically been protective of their front page, why now? Probably for the same reason that Google is shutting down Stadia [1] and cutting staff [2], and the same reason that we see roughly one announcement of layoffs here on Hacker News every week: most people expect that we are going into a recession. For example, see the price of major indexes like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ and plot it on a 10+ year…

I’m not sure I’d call that quick. Quick would be a single deep cut and return to normal operations.

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#179

Post by arnaudsm »

huijzer wrote: post #177

> Google has historically been protective of their front page, why now? Probably for the same reason that Google is shutting down Stadia [1] and cutting staff [2], and the same reason that we see roughly one announcement of layoffs here on Hacker News every week: most people expect that we are going into a recession. For example, see the price of major indexes like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ and plot it on a 10+ year…

I don't buy the SP500 graph argument, economies tend to behave on a log scale.

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#180

Post by pfooti »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #112
marcus_holmes wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you're a decision-maker at Google (or Any Large Corp). You have a KPI to increase revenue by 5% this year. If you hit this KPI, then you get a bonus. If you get the bonus, then you can afford the thing that your partner has been wanting forever (or that will make your neighbours jealous, or whatever), and you get a happy life. You know that doing X will harm the company in the long term (defined as anything past…

How do we fix this loop in companies? It is a very serious problem for humanity’s future. It exists in government too. How do we reward long-term thinking and decisions?

That's the neat part, you don't.

The problem, ultimately, cannot be solved without disassembling neoliberal capitalism. It is more or less endemic to the system. To a large extent that short termist, get returns and move on before the cost is due, mode of being is how we managed to run an economy that requires constant growth (rather than stability) to function. It's also why we won't solve any of our climate or many social issues.

There's no way to change this without drastically restructuring the utility function people apply to decisions, and that just won't happen until the aftermath of whatever collapse is inevitably going to happen when the planet floods.

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