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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

#261

Post by colordrops »

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…

I keep seeing this excuse but it doesn't explain why google doesn't downrank obvious bad actors that have been showing up at the top for years, or returning results that don't have the most important word in your search terms, or why they don't offer settings to permanently filter some sites. It's a problem with incentives, not SEO spam.

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

#262

Post by kroltan »

khaledh wrote: post #204
deelly wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You right, but Google at least can try to fix it. For example: allow users to hide sites from search results, allow users to downrank sites in search results, etc. etc.

Then it's going to be gamed, again. This time by businesses who would love to drown their competitors search results, or malicious players who want to attack an entity's web presence.

It's much harder to game if the rules are different for each consumer (and yeah, most people won't bother, but then they can't really complain either)

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

#263

Post by djbusby »

freediver wrote: post #208
DocTomoe wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm a Kagi private beta tester and love it. Will become a paying customer. One question: I do remember a page that told me how much I searched and what that would mean once Kagi becomes a paid service. I can't find that info anymore. In light of the mail us Kagi users got today, does that mean that it's going to be a flat rate for starters?

Yes that is what we intend to try ($10/mo flat fee for unlimited). Most users told us they are more comfortable with this model vs pay-per-use which is why we removed the "Consumption" page as is not relevant in this model. We do not yet know if the flat fee will be viable for the company and we hope to learn that very soon.

Can you make Consumption page into History page? I think it handy to see all my old searches.

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

#264

Post by blagie »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #258
blagie wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google" is 100+k people. "Google" doesn't respond to incentives; individuals do. A typical employee at any large company is incentivized to: - Maximize their salary - Maximize their future earnings potential (e.g. CV) - Have fun - Have work-life balance ... and so on. That goes all the way up to the CEO. Pretending a corporation thinks and responds to incentives is folly. Running a corporation like Google is like he…

Did you write that, or did your 85 billion (approx.) neurons? Corporations are intelligent, sentient entities which act on incentives. They don't have a conscious sense of self, but then neither do many natural organisms. That doesn't keep them from responding to their environment as if they're aware of it, and acting in incentive-driven ways. Corporations seeking to maximise profits are exactly like humans attemptin…

A megacorporation doesn't act like my 85 billion neurons. A corporation acts like a forest of trees, or at best, an anthill. Corporations (and simple organisms) respond to their environment, but not necessarily in incentive-driven ways. Often, corporations move opposite incentives not because of some local minimum or whatever, but because it, for example, personally benefits the CEO, a few board members, or a group of employees.

I can set up "incentives" for an anthill, in the form of a mixture of sugar and borax. Emergent behavior takes over.

The behavior of corporations, at the scale of Google, Facebook, or similar, is almost entirely emergent dynamics. Same thing for countries, for that matter.

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

#265

Post by jszymborski »

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.

I really like what I've read about Kagi, and I'll likely end-up paying for it too, but I _hate_ the metered fee.

I've never run a search engine, but I don't imagine that offering "Unlimited" searches where "unlimited" means "do not abuse" would meaningfully hurt their margins. As a benefit, you avoid losing customers that then need to ask "Do I make more than 5*80 searches a month? How many is that a day? What do I if I go over?". It also just feels like I'm being nickle-and-dimed.

I love that they're charging for the service, it makes me feel like they're building something sustainable. I just don't love the fee structure.

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

#266

Post by jszymborski »

benstrumental wrote: post #212
deelly wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Top result: https://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Flat-Tire Also, it predicts a video is best to answer this question and gives 3 YouTube thumbnails listed at the top of the results. They all seem generally helpful based on the…

These top results are identical to the results I'm getting from metager.org which is just a meta search engine. Both those results came from Bing in the case of metager

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

#267

Post by EricE »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #215
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.

They don't care about fixing it because people still flock to them.

And who can blame us? Other sites still suck worse. I can't believe how bad walmart.com still is - the user experience is night and day. Walmart - the retailer embracing computerized tracking of spending by credit card number and other advanced data analytics a full decade before Amazon was even a glimmer in Bezo's eye took forever to realize the power of using their stores as local fulfillment centers? Provides a 3rd party marketplace that's less reliable than craigslist? Who the hell is in charge of online operations at these big companies and how do they still have jobs?

Then again just look at Sears - the company that literally invented mail order *in the 1800's* and how they completely missed the Internet - the ultimate mail order environment.

Ugh.

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

#268

Post by blagie »

inoffensivename wrote: post #252
evgen wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The overall problem -- and this is not specific to Google -- is that managers at all levels are incentivized to grow head counts. No one is incentivised to grow head count. They are incentivised to do more, produce more revenue, and expand the reach of the company; most of these goals require the application of more smart people to a problem. They are not getting a promotion or salary bump because their group incre…

Respectfully, I think this is a little bit naive. While the job ladder doesn't explicitly specify org growth as a requirement to get ahead, leading more people is a classic way to get ahead as a relatively junior manager. If a manager's peers are all more senior but are leading similar sized or smaller orgs, it will seem natural that the junior manager should get promoted to the same level. Building orgs is a classic…

> Actually delivering value is a huge advantage too, but as far as I've seen is not prerequisite for getting ahead.

Appearing to deliver value is strongly advantageous. Delivering value helps you do that. Other methods:

- Good salesmanship (e.g. making easy things look difficult)

- Stealing credit (can be personal, or e.g. for market conditions)

- Lying (e.g. cooking books)

Delivering value is probably the easiest way to appear to deliver value at the IC level. The higher one moves in the corporate ladder, the more important the others become.

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

#269

Post by avh02 »

thefourthchime wrote: post #102
jeremyjh wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I use that and site:reddit.com as well.

Yep, those are my two modifiers i often use -- that and since:2021

This has recently been my desperation move when e.g similar bugs to what I'm facing were solved a decade ago (but were irrelevant) were coming out as top results rather than bugs for a recent version

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

#270

Post by EricE »

freediver wrote: post #208
DocTomoe wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm a Kagi private beta tester and love it. Will become a paying customer. One question: I do remember a page that told me how much I searched and what that would mean once Kagi becomes a paid service. I can't find that info anymore. In light of the mail us Kagi users got today, does that mean that it's going to be a flat rate for starters?

Yes that is what we intend to try ($10/mo flat fee for unlimited). Most users told us they are more comfortable with this model vs pay-per-use which is why we removed the "Consumption" page as is not relevant in this model. We do not yet know if the flat fee will be viable for the company and we hope to learn that very soon.

Another user here who see's huge value in just renaming the consumption page to a history page. Would be VERY handy! Especially if I could restrict a search to my own search history.
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