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Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

economist.com

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Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#211

Post by scarmig »

likeabbas wrote: post #196
awad wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think YouTube, which has a paid and ad-free version along with its Live TV offering, somehow manages to still be a sleeper hit within the larger Google portfolio and doesn't get talked about enough.

What happened to the Waymo hype? If Waymo manages to break through and become a sufficient AI taxi, then car ownership becomes optional for a majority of Americans (unlike today).

Waymo has always been just a year or two from breaking through.

Google's gotten through the first 95% of the work, but the remaining 95% is gonna take awhile.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#212

Post by emodendroket »

squiffsquiff wrote: post #203
emodendroket wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you had your choice of several awful results and everyone couldn’t shut up about how good Google was when it was available. If people mean “Google used to be better” I’m willing to entertain the idea, but you’re out of your mind if you miss using Altavista and Dogpile.

You're comparing Google how it was then. Not how it is now

With Google right now I find what I am looking for almost all of the time. I can’t say that about the golden oldies you’re praising.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#213

Post by somethoughts »

mejutoco wrote: post #205
somethoughts wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some have postulated that this might be Google's Blackberry moment. On the flip side I wonder if its actually more like its Dropbox moment. The press loves a David and Goliath story; the young disruptor versus the stodgy disrupted.[1] At that time, Dropbox was David, coming out of nowhere in a hurry and had a product that seemingly should be so obvious for Google to launch but hadn't - making Google seem antiquated a…

Last time I tried to sync my computer to gdrive I waited 30 days before giving up on gdrive. Dropbox took less than 2 days, and stayed responsive.

Good point - I think the much more typical flow for Google Drive is cloud first for most documents and only uploading occasional offline document upload.

Which is perhaps why Google didn't really focus on creating a Dropbox like product until it was forced to because the more long term profitable for Google was a solution/vision based around a cloud first experience.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#214

Post by dilap »

mattwad wrote: post #52
dilap wrote: post #31

Microsoft's integration of ChatGPT with Bing is really bad. No-one wants a busy search page with a side-bar of ChatGPT; what's the point of that? The correct interface for ChatGPT + search is just...ChatGPT. But it can also show you a list of web search results, when it's appropriate. A super-clean interface, that always shows you exactly what you want. That would be a killer feature and represent a real threat to Go…

As someone else said, the problem is ChatGPT lies straight to your face, whereas at least Google's answers are based on structured data by someone. It's traceable, whereas I would not trust ChatGPT ever to tell me the correct temperature to cook a steak.

Yes, it's a good point -- in its current form it's a bit hit or miss, since it can completely lie to you.

At least one person is working on this:

https://twitter.com/hsu_steve/status/1623388682454732801

While something like this would of course be incredible, even just current ChatGPT + the ability to web search for you would be quite amazing.

If MS isn't ready to completely replace Bing, then they should've made it an entirely separate page: bchat.com or something.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#215

Post by ESMirro »

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #69
hgsgm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. Google Search already has lots of useful AI already in it, but Google didn't want to integrate a racist, confabulating chatbot, forgetting that modern users have no preference for truth over lies. Why are you blaming Google for not being perfect while making the best free search engine, after you spent your whole life refusing to pay for a non-free one?

If OpenAI is willing to release it and Microsoft invested 10B, I have a very hard time believing that censoring the model is impossible. Microsoft 100% did their due diligence on the model. Google is a monopoly, there is nothing anyone can do. Their search engine and business model has structured the internet and thus society. This thing needs to die

This is the same Microsoft that had to close down their Twitter AI “Tay” after a single day because it immediately became a “racist asshole” (as per The Verge) in 2016?

The same OpenAI ran by Sam Altman, who just last year was part of a crypto biometric scam called “Worldcoin” that attempted to collect biometric data from some of the worlds poorest in exchange for a shitcoin?

I’m sure they’ve done their due diligence and aren’t just pushing out a broken product as quickly as possible after it went viral because they saw dollar signs…

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#216

Post by amartya916 »

revskill wrote: post #207
Bhilai wrote: post #199

Sorry to break it to you folks but if you hated your data being with Google, you are in for a surprise on how atrociously bad Microsoft is at privacy and security. Multiple close friends who have worked at Microsoft tell me that search history data - who is searching what, is basically sitting in systems with ACLs so bad that 20-30K employees have access through transitive membership of groups. To access a customer's…

It's not much about Microsoft. At least it improved human life in serious ways (Typescript, VSCode,...). What did Google bring to my life ? Nothing except for spam stuffs from Ad, Email,... You're responsible for your data, not Google, not Microsoft.

While it might be fashionable to hate on Google, the question "What did Google bring to my life" seems really odd. I can't believe I have to say this but search, and more importantly good/fast search, is to Google's credit. Typescript and VSCode all have, and will continue to have alternatives, but for a long time, Google was (some may argue it still is) the bleeding edge of search. Anyway, there might be a generational thing at play here, if so, I meant no condescension.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#218

Post by ilc »

amelius wrote: post #163
ilc wrote: post #90

People seem to forget: AI is about data, the ability to process it, and having a few smart folks to do algorithms. The third part is actually the smallest and easiest part of the trilogy for AI. Google, has all three. The real question is can they not shoot themselves in the foot while doing it. Also SEO will always target the market leader. As far as Bing's results: I keep thinking Google is trashy. Then I use Bing…

> People seem to forget: AI is about data, the ability to process it, and having a few smart folks to do algorithms. The third part is actually the smallest and easiest part of the trilogy for AI. MS has them all three too. And since, as you say, the algorithm part is not the most difficult part, others may enter the playing field soon (we already have DDG and Kagi, for example, with Kagi now experimenting with LLMs…

The compute side needs to be solved with money. That may be a hurdle for DDG/Kagi.

MS has the money. Data is by far and away the hardest part, and DDG's own privacy policies etc will hurt it here, alas.

Personally, I think it is Google's race to win. But they have to DO it. If I start getting better results off DDG or Bing, I'll switch. I'm fickle, and own no loyality to Google.

I just want my StackExchange answers faster, before Google Coder, and Co-Pilot replace me. /s

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#219

Post by dahdum »

zug_zug wrote: post #82
massysett wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this sort of comment a lot, and I honestly don't know what it's talking about. What are people expecting out of Google that it's not delivering? It can only index stuff that's on the Web. Stuff on the Web is, contrary to what is popularly asserted, only a tiny fraction of all human knowledge. I think people are forgetting how bad search was before Google. Google drove Web directories to extinction. Remember Yah…

For one, when I search a recipe, I want less than a 30 page document. I've wanted this for 20 years, and so has everybody else.

The personal backstory and other "fluff" is actually really useful when selecting a recipe. I was laid up with covid/rebound while traveling over the holidays and lived off Hainanese Chicken Rice delivery. Now I want to make it at home and search for a recipe.

#1 result is a long article with culinary history, detailed instructions, many pictures, and a credited author originally from Shanghai.

#2 result is a simple recipe listing from Buzzfeed. Written by a young white guy from Minnesota who worked as a producer. No fluff, no pictures, no backstory. Doubtful the author ever made the recipe at all. You could grab a recipe database and generate thousands of these pages.

I've been burned by #2 too many times disregard the fluff. It shows their investment in the content.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#220

Post by mistercow »

bergie wrote: post #172
wcoenen wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The new Bing also cites all its sources". That's a quote from the microsoft announcement. https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/02/07/reinventing-sear...

And users of the New Bing will certainly verify that the sources say what ChatGPT claims they do?

If they don’t, then the traceability of traditional search results is just as useless.
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