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Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

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Re: Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

#291

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

lmm wrote: post #244
crossroadsguy wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. But I won’t discuss that. Here’s something else — the most critical part of a booking — the booking itself. Go talk to third party aggregator chat bot when you realise you don’t even have a booking that you booked. 4-5 days later if you’re lucky you’ll receive an apology email if you’re lucky, which mentions that they do not want you have that experience and they’ve send it for feedback to the relevant team…

Again that's the opposite of my experience. If I've booked on Booking.com my booking is right there, on their website and in my inbox. If I book directly with the hotel, do I have a booking? Uh, maybe. Roll of the dice when I show up.

This is super interesting. I know it happens, but I'm decently traveled and I've never had it happen to me (booking directly with the hotel and having that booking not be available). I've probably stayed in at least 500 individual direct bookings with hotels in my lifetime, to at least give some numbers to the anecdata.

Re: Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

#292

Post by 5amdotis »

natoliniak wrote: post #215
slig wrote: post #5

Using Brave Search feels like the Google Search from mid 2000s. Anyone tired of Google should give it a try.

i tried, but I was immediately put off by the inability to search for an exact string. To me, that makes a search engine useless. Am i missing something? I tried using quotes etc, but the results always force up approximate matches.

Same... even DuckDuckGo (also tested on Google, Yandex, Bing, and Baidu) returned expected results.

Re: Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

#293

Post by komali2 »

ementally wrote: post #43

I actually find their Goggles [0] feature really interesting. [0] https://search.brave.com/help/goggles

That is really cool. It reminds me of I think it was in "Fall, or Dodge in Hell," by Neal Stephenson. The internet had been polluted with spam and fake information, and the future handled this by subscribing to "edit streams," or if they were rich enough having their own personal editor, who would tailor whatever content was out there to the person's tastes (and desire for truthiness, or, based on who they trusted as authoritative).

Re: Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

#294

Post by JimDabell »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #282
rjh29 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say that but it doesn't ring true in my experience. Let's face it, you're just paying more for the same service if you book directly.

I'll tell you a story about Booking.com. I booked an ostensibly available hotel in Ouray, CO in fairly peak season. I got there and they of course, had already sold the booking beforehand and because the systems didn't link up correctly Booking's availability was not updated. It was the hotel's fault, but it didn't matter. Not a single other hotel in Ouray had availability, and, if you happen to know the area, anythi…

> Not a single other hotel in Ouray had availability, and, if you happen to know the area, anything that resembles a hotel outside of Ouray is going to be a significantly long drive.

> Booking.com was zero help at all when I called them. None. They couldn't find or book me another hotel, and basically just told me that there was nothing they could do besides refund my money.

I get that you were in a very difficult position, but if there weren’t any hotel rooms, what were you expecting Booking.com to do? And what did the hotel do to help you?

> I always book directly with the hotel if I can, because, if you do that, the shit that I mentioned just doesn't happen.

Of course it does. Booking.com didn't invent double bookings.

Re: Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

#295

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

JimDabell wrote: post #294
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll tell you a story about Booking.com. I booked an ostensibly available hotel in Ouray, CO in fairly peak season. I got there and they of course, had already sold the booking beforehand and because the systems didn't link up correctly Booking's availability was not updated. It was the hotel's fault, but it didn't matter. Not a single other hotel in Ouray had availability, and, if you happen to know the area, anythi…

> Not a single other hotel in Ouray had availability, and, if you happen to know the area, anything that resembles a hotel outside of Ouray is going to be a significantly long drive. > Booking.com was zero help at all when I called them. None. They couldn't find or book me another hotel, and basically just told me that there was nothing they could do besides refund my money. I get that you were in a very difficult po…

My point is that they aren’t on the side of the booker. They are on the side that makes them the most money. Incentives are not aligned to provide the best possible experience for consumers. I would have expected them to at least say “this is not ok, we are looking into this relationship with this hotel. We own responsibility for this hotel that we ostensibly vetted to be adequately integrated with our systems to not fuck you, and they did. After all, we advertised them as a booking on our site”.

But they didn’t do any of that. They just said, sorry, can’t help you. Which is fine, but be aware of that and don’t sing their praises from the rooftops and advocate for them by saying “why would you not use them over booking first party?”

Re: Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

#296

Post by JimDabell »

George83728 wrote: post #252
lmm wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (For anyone who's ever tried to modify a reservation, the difference is astonishing. If you're booked with the hotel, all kinds of adjustments are at least possible. If you're booked with Booking, Travelocity, Expedia, etc., it's somewhere between hard and hopeless.) That's utterly backwards IME. On Booking.com, most modifications are the push of a button (that, crucially, is right there in the UI that I already kn…

For what it's worth, my batting average for getting problems fixed on the phone with a real person is substantially better than trying to sort problems out on a website. To the point that phone calls are now my first resort, before even trying a business's website. Sometimes the person on the phone suggests the website to me, but if I decline with a "well.. I'm not very good with websites" excuse [which is effectivel…

Do you mainly travel where there isn’t a language barrier? My experience is the exact opposite. Written messages are far more helpful when there is a language barrier.

Re: Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

#297

Post by JimDabell »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #295
JimDabell wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not a single other hotel in Ouray had availability, and, if you happen to know the area, anything that resembles a hotel outside of Ouray is going to be a significantly long drive. > Booking.com was zero help at all when I called them. None. They couldn't find or book me another hotel, and basically just told me that there was nothing they could do besides refund my money. I get that you were in a very difficult po…

My point is that they aren’t on the side of the booker. They are on the side that makes them the most money. Incentives are not aligned to provide the best possible experience for consumers. I would have expected them to at least say “this is not ok, we are looking into this relationship with this hotel. We own responsibility for this hotel that we ostensibly vetted to be adequately integrated with our systems to not…

Yes, but you are blaming them for being unable to resolve what appears to be an unresolvable problem that a hotel you booked directly wouldn’t be able to help with either. Incentives don’t matter there if nobody is in a position to do anything.

I think Booking.com is by far more reliant upon repeat customers than hotels. If a hotel screws up a booking, sure the customer isn’t going to come back but they probably weren’t even if they had a good experience – people travel to lots of different places. If Booking.com screws up a booking, they very probably lost a repeat customer – Booking.com gets used again and again even when people travel to many different places. Booking.com’s incentives are more closely aligned with the traveller than the hotel’s are.

Re: Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

#298

Post by speedgoose »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #271
PpEY4fu85hkQpn wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"politics" is one way to describe him donating a large sum of money to a bigoted anti-gay cause and losing the trust of his employees.

Yes. Politics. Stuff that's irrelevant to the development of Firefox. Which is the only thing Mozilla should be focusing on given how far behind they are.

Perhaps people don’t like to support people actively working against their rights.

By using Firefox you support Mozilla, so you support the CEO financing political campaigns you don’t agree with. The CEO is a special role that represents Mozilla.

It’s simple, the guy had to go.

Re: Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

#299

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

JimDabell wrote: post #297
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that they aren’t on the side of the booker. They are on the side that makes them the most money. Incentives are not aligned to provide the best possible experience for consumers. I would have expected them to at least say “this is not ok, we are looking into this relationship with this hotel. We own responsibility for this hotel that we ostensibly vetted to be adequately integrated with our systems to not…

Yes, but you are blaming them for being unable to resolve what appears to be an unresolvable problem that a hotel you booked directly wouldn’t be able to help with either. Incentives don’t matter there if nobody is in a position to do anything. I think Booking.com is by far more reliant upon repeat customers than hotels. If a hotel screws up a booking, sure the customer isn’t going to come back but they probably were…

Perhaps you misinterpreted my above comment. I don’t blame booking for my poor experience with that hotel, merely their response to the situation.

If what you say is true, I would think that there would be evidence of some sort of punitive action from booking.com for poor behavior like this. As far as I know, such evidence does not exist.

Re: Every web search result in Brave Search is now served by our own index

#300

Post by vinay_ys »

ptero wrote: post #259
TylerE wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re booked 3rd party you’re much more likely to be the one bumped I. The first place. You’re also likely to get the least desireable rooms on the least desireable floors.

That does not match my experience. IME the bumping is first and foremost dependent on the time of arrival. While the hotel has rooms, they will give them out to those who booked and show up. Should the hotel run out due to overbooking, how the next guest booked a room is not going to matter. My 2c.

Big sophisticated hotels have blocks of rooms at different price points. So, even if there are rooms currently empty but have been reserved for customers who have paid higher price, they won't give them to you.

In recent years, I have not had any booking problems whatsoever. Only problem I had more than 10 years ago was about arriving very late and finding that my room reservation had been released and they were full. Luckily it was a big chain hotel which had another property nearby and was able to get me a room there for the night and then resume my original room for the rest of the week long stay. This was very busy conference week and all 3+ star hotels were full in the area.

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