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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

#421

Post by EricE »

stevelosh wrote: post #327
superasn wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've been using it during the beta and plan on paying for it once they start charging. Previously I had tried switching to DuckDuckGo, but found myself using !g half the time because I knew the DDG results would be garbage compared to the Google results. I haven't found Kagi's results to be significantly better than Google's results, but unlike DDG they're not hugely worse than Google. It's all the extra stuff that m…

>* Ability to banish sites from results forever.

And for this I will HAPPILY pay $10 a month. It's the most freaking annoying thing about Google. Obvious link farm sites with zero way to remove them.

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

#422

Post by EricE »

mlom wrote: post #226

"Nothing wrong with that, making money is noble" this right here is why you never make any progress and never fix anything and you never understand why everything sucks, you keep rewarding perverse incentives and greed and then try to work around it as if greed were not the central problem. making money is not noble, making money does not represent increasing value, it only represents cornering tokens of others' labo…

Making money is the practical reality and the entire foundation of the modern world. Do you really think trading chickens or loafs of bread is more practical than exchanging money for goods and services?

How ridiculously naïve! You should be ashamed that you have the utter privilege to hold such utterly ridiculous thoughts without the fear of starving or not having shelter.

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

#423

Post by mhmmbt »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #359
mhmmbt wrote: post #260

Technical solutions are not going to fix a political problem. Sundar has been quoted as saying “they are a business first” and a businesses political obligation is make profit for the owners. These companies and technologies are meant to serve human beings, not a mathematical ideal in programmers heads. While: $makeMoney == $howSocietyWorks; return $getUsedToIt Ooh but politics is boring! Only 13% of adults in the US…

They sure use and depend on what that 13% develop/create/literally engineer and maintain, though.

Do they want to or do they have few options?

When a brain is trained to follow along from childhood, I don’t really see how it’s an option to avoid it.

Also the 13% are not all engineers. Many are historians or similar who babble nonsense. We built many big buildings and bridges before web devs came along.

Centralized ledgers used to dictate agency and what effort we must put in (computed by elites with a currency monopoly; which in the US is legally a speech monopoly thanks to SCOTUS) are not really the same thing as a bridge.

There’s a big difference between things we need to engineer and TV 2.0. Whole lot of IT is rent seeking.

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

#424

Post by blitzar »

tim333 wrote: post #417
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine goes to https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/cars-trucks/how-t... , with a summary on the Google search results itself. It's probably location dependent, but I wonder if there's a bit of randomness in there as well to give websites with equivalent information similar exposure.

Me too. I think often the complaints against Google expect a bit much from it. I mean use uBlock Origin to block some of the ad nonsense and if the first search term doesn't get it try something a bit different. Also set it to 30 results not 10 and scroll a bit.

I feel it is everyones duty as a citizen of the internet to spend as much money as possible on the >2nd page of google.

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

#425

Post by taoufix »

s-video wrote: post #15

This is nitpicky but the tire changing page doesn't actually fit your rational for choosing .edu pages >Professors are paid generous salaries to share knowledge with the paying customers of the University (students). So, let’s find some paid unpaid University knowledge on how to change a tire by using our new trick! But the bottom of the page says >Prepared by: [students] For Dr. Bruce Magee's English 303 (Technical…

The real problem for me is that you need to know where to search in ordre to make the search:

Car troubles? YouTube chrisfix car_problem

Knowlage stuff? Wikipedia query

Programming question? Stackoverflow question

... and so on

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

#426

Post by baxuz »

Gunax wrote: post #333
Workaccount2 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other side of the coin is that users are so used to the "free" model (read: ad model) that they refuse to pay for anything directly. Look at youtube. They show ads and there is a non-stop stream of complaints about how long/bad/annoying they are. They offer a paid subscription to remove all ads and people laugh at the audacity youtube has to ask for money. Users DO NOT want to see/watch ads. Users DO NOT want to…

YT Premium is expensive. Much more expensive than users expect. Most people underestimate the value of their attention. Youtube earned 7 billion USD in ad revenue last quarter. The value of our attention is a shock to most people. I suspect that YouTube may actually be losing money (as compared to ad revenue), even at the $12 / month--a price many users find outrageous. I am calling this the 'ad gap', which is differ…

Exactly. YouTube Premium is loaded. Its pricing is based around selling YouTube Music and YouTube Originals. I don't want either. I'd happily pay 5$/month for a YouTube Premium experience.

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

#427

Post by baxuz »

rg111 wrote: post #214
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.

Never heard about those two.

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

#428

Post by baxuz »

rg111 wrote: post #214
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.

I really expected code.you.com to be tailored to coding, but the results are nonsensical. The $ got stripped, as well as any other characters like %, #, or _. Casing is also ignored.

Searching for $PATH results in this. Yes, I definitely wanted these results:

> PATH (People Acting To Help), Inc. is a comprehensive Behavioral / Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities center located in Northeast Philadelphia.

> Better health moves humanity forward | PATH The scope of our work is vast because it must be. Billions of people are still underserved or marginalized by inequitable systems. To close the gaps, we advance progress in dozens of health areas, from epidemic preparedness, HIV/AIDS, and malaria, to maternal and newborn care, sexual and reproductive health, tuberculosis, and more.

https://imgur.com/a/rGxZgrG

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

#429

Post by bsparker »

baxuz wrote: post #428
rg111 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I really expected code.you.com to be tailored to coding, but the results are nonsensical. The $ got stripped, as well as any other characters like %, #, or _. Casing is also ignored. Searching for $PATH results in this. Yes, I definitely wanted these results: > PATH (People Acting To Help), Inc. is a comprehensive Behavioral / Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities center located in Northeast Philadelphia. > Bet…

I'm a product manager working on code.you.com. This is good feedback and an interesting suggestion. We'll work on adding those special characters, variables and casing to make the search better for coding.

We're just getting started but working really hard to make this something special. There is a fairly active slack community if you have any other suggestions and want to share. thx.

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

#430

Post by baxuz »

bsparker wrote: post #429
baxuz wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really expected code.you.com to be tailored to coding, but the results are nonsensical. The $ got stripped, as well as any other characters like %, #, or _. Casing is also ignored. Searching for $PATH results in this. Yes, I definitely wanted these results: > PATH (People Acting To Help), Inc. is a comprehensive Behavioral / Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities center located in Northeast Philadelphia. > Bet…

I'm a product manager working on code.you.com. This is good feedback and an interesting suggestion. We'll work on adding those special characters, variables and casing to make the search better for coding. We're just getting started but working really hard to make this something special. There is a fairly active slack community if you have any other suggestions and want to share. thx.

Thanks for being engaged with your users. It's a rare thing.

Good luck with the product! I'd also suggest giving priority to sites which use 

 or  blocks in their HTML.
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