Google is dead. Where do we go now? • Hacker News Board

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#651

Post by esseph » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 8:53 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #554

esseph wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reddit is fucking miserable Reddit is the town bar, the popular one. Some people love the town bar! :) Some people hate the town bar! :(

Things like this can often be assessed on a macro level. When you start to get the number of users sites like Facebook have and sites like Reddit claim they have, you end up with content that's reflective of a broad sample of society. You do have that on Facebook, you do not have that on Reddit. I suspect Reddit is intentionally overcounting by doing things like counting multiple devices as different users, multiple…

If you look at their "all accounts" it's over 650,000,000.

Around 250,000,000 is monthly user usage, which would be for one or more accounts.

And if course, like every site, a percentage that keep the thing going (around 35,000,000 daily logins).

It's one of the top sites on the internet and has been for a very long time.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#652

Post by miguelbemartin » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 8:54 AM UTC

Google is not dead in this case; what is dead is Ads on top of Google. I think the best way to fix this is to ensure that your website is optimized for searches in Google and in the new AI world.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#653

Post by miguelbemartin » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 8:55 AM UTC

miguelbemartin wrote: post #652

Google is not dead in this case; what is dead is Ads on top of Google. I think the best way to fix this is to ensure that your website is optimized for searches in Google and in the new AI world.

Every website should be optimized for searches in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude,...

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#654

Post by miguelbemartin » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 8:56 AM UTC

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #43

I think the author intended the title to be, "Google Ads is dead, Where do I promote my business now?" When I hear "Google" I assume search, oof (sigh of relief). They mention running ads on tiktok or instagram but no mention of youtube ads... Also, In my own experience for my business ( also entertainment) I have found reddit ads to be useful. So my next steps would be, Reddit Ads Youtube Ads Instagram Ads Increase…

I see paid ads as a short-term goal; the business seems to be local, so people should find this when looking for this specific service in their city.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#655

Post by ruszki » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 8:57 AM UTC

xtracto wrote: post #184

manoDev wrote: post #29

The web is dead, we replaced with portable cable TV where you scroll up to change channel.

Glad to see I'm not the one that sees the similarity in "zapping" or channel surfing to what people do nowadays with those shorts... I remember my brother loving to do channel surfing in the 80s when we were young. I've always hated it! maybe that's why I cannot stand the current Tiktok media format (so sad that Youtube is pushing more and more the same format). Also, remember when telephones started and people who t…

I still consider them as inconsiderate. You can watch a horizontal video on every screen with more, or equal detail. That's not true for vertical videos.

But at least, we could experience first hand that laziness beats thoughtfulness, when people are allowed to.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#656

Post by jasonvorhe » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 9:01 AM UTC

I'm amazed people on HN still use Google tbh. What for? Do you expect them to get better or treat your eyeballs and attention with more dignity anytime soon?

There's Kagi, Brave Search, even DDG would be better.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#657

Post by drstewart » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 9:05 AM UTC

NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #627

bluedino wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The person kept making the comment that she couldn't see/find the puck and it made it frustrating to watch. Lifelong hockey fan, I never understood this complaint. I believe it was FOX that did the 'highlight the puck' thing for a few years in the 1990's. You can't see the ball in American football, either. But you don't need to. The guy that's running and everyone is trying to tackle? He has the ball. Just like th…

> American football handegg*

Also:

basketball -> handball

hockey -> stickball

volleyball -> handball

rugby -> handegg

baseball -> stickball

cricket -> stickball

golf -> stickball

Hopefully this will finally appease the football literalists and make things simpler for you all to understand :)

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#658

Post by glitchcrab » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 9:09 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #465

kalleboo wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disk drive prices are also soaring. Looking up a random WD drive: up 70% since July, a Seagate drive, up 50%

For $125, which is also about the price of one year of cloud storage, you can get a hard drive big enough to store half a million photos and also back up a million photos. It probably won't ever go over $200. And the hardware to serve that hard drive is somewhere between free and another hundred.

Sure, but then you're putting all your eggs in one basket (hard drive). If you really want to divest yourself of the cloud then you need to set things up in a redundant and fault-tolerant fashion. And at that point the outlay is much more than 'just a hard drive'.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#659

Post by pzo » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 9:11 AM UTC

cookiengineer wrote: post #278

nostrademons wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my anecdotal experience, it's moved to private, trust-based channels: iMessage, WhatsApp, email, face-to-face interactions. Our 30-year bender of putting our lives online and blurring the public and the private has finally ended: people don't want to be online, don't trust social media, don't really trust any media, and are living simple local lives with a small circle of friends that they get together with regula…

I had a very interesting discussion with a friend today, where I was talking to her about the /r/golang thread about Rob Pike's comments to OpenAI and how the thread was full of bots talking with other bots. No idea why the density of bots was so high in that thread, it was kind of absurd to see. Then she said: "I know nobody that comments on online forums. Nobody would ever comment to strangers on the internet. It's…

> she said: "I know nobody that comments on online forums.

Yet she knows you and you and me are strangers talking to each other on this forum. I think we don't know even close friends what online communities people hang out - the reason she didn't know about you being on HN.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#660

Post by Bombthecat » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 9:13 AM UTC

naravara wrote: post #472

mikepurvis wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely this. I recently got a nice photo taken with my kids and for the first time I... didn't post it on Facebook. I sent it to my family group chat. Yesterday I posted on Facebook for the first time in months and it was about the power being out for an hour in the ice storm. I haven't posted travel photos to FB in years. I'm mostly still on FB at all for the acquaintance-level connections to things like neighbo…

I’ve been thinking about setting up a family domain and just hosting my family’s pictures to it as a way to share internally. But the risk exposure of running anything online is just so bad now, it feels risky and a pain in the ass to both give family access to see and post but also seal it off from spammers and scammers. The way in which any open text box on the internet is guaranteed to turn into a malware vector i…

I was thinking about something similar. ( Family photo sharing) The problem is: family is so used to Instagram and co, that they won't use it.