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If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

abhinavsharma.com

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Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#421

Post by vivekraghunatha »

sokoloff wrote: post #97
kodah wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, Neeva is eventually going to be a paid product, that's why it's that way. That said, their membership is pretty cheap for what you get.

I don't mind giving my email or making an account after I have any inkling that the product might be worth deleting a few spam emails. Neeva was giving me a modal popup in my first minute; that's never going to get my email.

(Founder of Neeva here) Appreciate the input and hear your frustration. This is a carryover from changes we made to introduce the free tier earlier in the quarter. We are making imminent improvements on modal frequency and getting them out of your way. Stay posted.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#422

Post by peter303 »

kauguste281 wrote: post #65

Google sucks compared to Google from years ago. It's still vastly superior to the modern alternatives. It doesn't help that almost all alternatives out there are just Bing with different window dressing, so going through alternatives is just annoying as they have all the same holes in the search results. Another big issue is that everybody just tries to copy Google. I don't need Google in less good, I want to see som…

Plus I strongly suspect Google search no longer gives the most accurate answer, but the one most profitable for Google ads.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#423

Post by vivekraghunatha »

(Founder of Neeva here) On OP's question -- don't underestimate the power of defaults. Google owns Chrome and Android. Google pays Apple to be the default on Safari. Google pays Firefox to be the default. Bing is default on Edge. And so on. All the platforms make it very hard to change the defaults. And on platforms like Safari, as a user, you can't even change the default search provider if you want to.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#424

Post by mohanmcgeek »

JohnFen wrote: post #413
mohanmcgeek wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google was better ten years ago because search was an easier problem to solve back then Has anyone considered the possibility that all this Machine learning and AI models is what made Google and YouTube searches worse?

I strongly suspect that's a very large part of what is making everything worse. Or, at least, there does seem to be a correlation in time between the implementation of ML and the degradation of the quality of results.

I wouldn't call it so much the implementation of ML but rather from when they decided they were an AI/ML company.

The Amazon recommendations engine, the poster child of ML in 2014 isn't any good at recommending products that I actually want to buy either.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#426

Post by jstummbillig »

542458 wrote: post #385
jstummbillig wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google sucks compared to Google from years ago. Sure, in the sense that someone who had their legs broken sucks at running. Compared to yesterdays, Google today has to deal with a whole new level of the entire world trying to game their search. It's easy to fetch good water when the well is clean and no one is trying to actively poison it.

I partially agree with your comment, but it feels like in some/many cases the Google algorithm has large flaws that were not previously there and that (superficially) seem solvable. For example: * If I search for recipes, the Google algorithm seems to heavily favour recipes with a short novel prepended to them. The “novel” does not have to be particularly relevant to the content - I’ve seen recipes with “novels” that…

Don't know about regressions. Did it maybe just take people some time to figure out that Google Bot is really, really captivated by a riveting story to accompany that pancake recipe?

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#427

Post by jstummbillig »

SahAssar wrote: post #388
jstummbillig wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google sucks compared to Google from years ago. Sure, in the sense that someone who had their legs broken sucks at running. Compared to yesterdays, Google today has to deal with a whole new level of the entire world trying to game their search. It's easy to fetch good water when the well is clean and no one is trying to actively poison it.

Different types of these strategies have been around since before google existed. Hell, even web directories (like early yahoo!) had to deal with spam, early google had to deal with keyword spam. Paid backlinks, spammed comment sections with backlinks, copied content sites as backlink farms, all of this existed at least as early as 2005-ish. For some sites (some of them with legitimate info) the meta keywords tag (ev…

This is not 2005 spam. This is just how people are expected to write now. More people think it's normal. By spam being more content-like, and, in response, content getting inspired by spam and getting more spam-like, spam is getting increasingly indistinguishable from content.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#428

Post by joering2 »

xerox13ster wrote: post #395
FastMonkey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose in the absence of cash we would just force some people to do the necessary tasks that aren't anyone's favourite hobbies?

Well, ideally people could choose to do whatever they liked to provide for society. Everyone would have a role to play. So those that like to farm (raised on a farm, to be proud of their work) would farm, those that want to commit their life to science could attempt to advance their field. Someone might find an invigorating pride in making sure wastewater treatment is running well, but they don't know how to get into…

Couldn't have written it better myself. Thank YOU!

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#429

Post by FastMonkey »

xerox13ster wrote: post #395
FastMonkey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose in the absence of cash we would just force some people to do the necessary tasks that aren't anyone's favourite hobbies?

Well, ideally people could choose to do whatever they liked to provide for society. Everyone would have a role to play. So those that like to farm (raised on a farm, to be proud of their work) would farm, those that want to commit their life to science could attempt to advance their field. Someone might find an invigorating pride in making sure wastewater treatment is running well, but they don't know how to get into…

I don't know how to break it to you, but the system you're looking for that does all the things you're saying is capitalism.

Have the talent and desire to be a heart surgeon? Go for it, and you'll be rewarded. Want to make life sized statues of the Beatles out of used printer cartridges? Eh, fine but maybe also get a day job.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#430

Post by space_rock »

makeitdouble wrote: post #400
temp wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone lives in the US and/or an English-speaking country. I can't find shit with DDG and the experience is like using Google from 20 years ago when it didn't have any of its bells and whistles.

It’s actually because I’m not in an english speaking country that Google is failing me and screwing my searches for anything than can be somewhat pushed to local results… I’m glad it works for you, it just reminds me how different are everyone’s expectations of good search results.

Same here. Traveling and when I search for postgres I don't want to find the local student project as the top result
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