Why Google is so unbearable, and how to fix it • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by warent » Wed, May 18, 2022, 2:55 PM UTC

freediver wrote: post #121

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.

You are right. And the actual number is lot smaller. We just need 0.001% of Google users to be sustainable with the current team size. (or about 50,000 users out of 4.3B Google users). And if you find 50k users, you will find 100k. First 5k is tricky! (Kagi founder here)

I've been using Kagi for a month or two now. Love it and very excited about your work. Unlike alternatives such as DuckDuckGo, it has easily and painlessly replaced Google Search for me. Can't wait to see more from yall

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

#212

Post by benstrumental » Wed, May 18, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

deelly wrote: post #178

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.

Could you show some examples of search results?

I have been trying Kagi for a few months and have found it better than Google in most cases, though not a silver bullet.

Here are the queries from the original article in Kagi:

    how to fix a flat tire

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

#213

Post by andyjohnson0 » Wed, May 18, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

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.

They're about to move into public beta. But you'll still have to log in because they want you to pay. I think its worth it, and its more honest.

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

#214

Post by rg111 » Wed, May 18, 2022, 2:57 PM UTC

baxuz wrote: post #77

It's not a Google problem, it's a web problem. Everything is based around SEO spam. If someone has a website, and they're producing content, their point is to monetize the browsing of the website itself, or promote their main product via the website. This incentivizes a certain kind of content, which is marketing content. These days I'm back to searching social networks like Reddit or Hacker News for (at least somewh…

> It's not a Google problem

Oh it is definitelt a Google problem.

I was in mood yesterday and I tried Google versus Kagi and You Code. Results of N out of N queries in other search engines were miles better in other search engines than Google.

I have now switched completely to code.you.com and Kagi from Google.

They are ready.

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

#215

Post by dreamcompiler » Wed, May 18, 2022, 2:57 PM UTC

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.

OT, but Amazon is in the same boat. Their problems with counterfeit merchandise and fly-by-night Chinese junk manufacturers have been going on so long that it's become clear they don't want to fix the problem because it's now a major revenue source for them. Apparently someone at Amazon decided the Aliexpress marketplace was more lucrative than selling good products.

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

#216

Post by benstrumental » Wed, May 18, 2022, 2:58 PM UTC

superasn wrote: post #197

svnpenn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes i too would like to see a side by side comparison why it's better than just dude trust me..

I've been relatively happy with Kagi so far. Happy to post some search results if you want to propose some queries to compare against Google.

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

#217

Post by satao » Wed, May 18, 2022, 2:58 PM UTC

marricks wrote: post #193

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some years ago there were some serious Warnings issued from Google: Make your website fast and small! Popups will be PUNISHED! as will mobile-unfriendliness! But in hindsight, this was a ploy from them to try and upsell AMP, which was in a lot of cases heavier than non-AMP websites, and it was a means to keep people inside of their ecosystem - and inside of their advertising network, because not all websites Google l…

They own the web through Chrome, it’s one of their best investments. They’re killing Firefox with it (RIP) and successfully killed IE with it (rest in piss). We’re getting to a desktop browser hegemony again but I doubt a scrappy upstart will be able to save us.

For sure, and it’s only Safari that gets a bad reputation

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

#218

Post by stickfigure » Wed, May 18, 2022, 2:58 PM UTC

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.

This makes no sense. You make it sound like Google has no financial incentive to fix this problem, which is patently false. Google isn't selling the organic search results, which is what this article talks about.

The problem is that Google is engaged in a war with SEO optimizers, and losing (or at least, barely breaking even). No business model will fix that. It's a hard problem that any successful search engine will struggle with.

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

#219

Post by blagie » Wed, May 18, 2022, 3:00 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #176

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.

It is sad because I spent nearly 10 years at Google and nearly all the people I met were well-meaning, seemingly harmless, engineering-oriented, and data-driven. But the configuration of people that makes up the superorganism that is Google nowadays is driven by both local incentives and a broad top incentive to grow. Scale to more computation, more storage, more bandwidth, and with lower overhead--morally, those are…

The overall problem -- and this is not specific to Google -- is that managers at all levels are incentivized to grow head counts.

Google has at least 10x as many employees as it needs. That's based on decades of revenue being decoupled from costs, and from monopoly profits. It's the double-whammy of being in tech (where costs and revenues don't couple since incremental costs are close to zero), and having a super-profitable monopoly.

You can't fire 90% of the workforce; even morale and culture problems aside, at this point, the organization is structured to need too many people. On the other hand, organizing over 100k employees turns into this superorganism problem.

At >100k employees, the influence of anyone -- up to and including the CEO -- is very, very limited. Dynamics take over.

I've been bearish on Google for a long time, but I haven't shorted the stock. Market irrationality can last a lot longer than my wallet. Fundamentally, though, one could muscle through building a new, better Google for much less than the valuation of Google.

Google could also be worth a lot more with a breakup. There is negative synergy between, for example, advertising, Google Workspace, Android, hosting, etc. If those were independent businesses, with partnerships around things like data sharing, the total value could be much higher. Alphabet was a move in the right direction, but the move should have been much deeper. Right now, Alphabet is Google + a bunch of tiny startups.

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

#220

Post by JKCalhoun » Wed, May 18, 2022, 3:00 PM UTC

aporetics wrote: post #203

titzer wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is sad because I spent nearly 10 years at Google and nearly all the people I met were well-meaning, seemingly harmless, engineering-oriented, and data-driven. But the configuration of people that makes up the superorganism that is Google nowadays is driven by both local incentives and a broad top incentive to grow. Scale to more computation, more storage, more bandwidth, and with lower overhead--morally, those are…

> well-meaning, seemingly harmless, engineering-oriented, and data-driven At some point I really hope that we can all recognize that “seemingly harmless”, “engineering-oriented”, and “data-driven” are not virtues.

If you believe they are neither vices as well, then I can see your point — they just are.

Perhaps this is the point you are making: if one is data-driven and engineering-oriented without regard to the consequences, that could be seen as a vice.

Despite the amazing engineering/science, it is hard to come to peace with von Braun or Teller (just to pick two examples).