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Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

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Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#81

Post by mrweasel »

nicce wrote: post #73
mrweasel wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically anyone who would want to make an offer for Chrome should be banned for purchasing it. It's not a profitable business to be in, and Perplexity would just do the exact same thing that might force Google to sell Chrome. The only companies that should be allowed to buy Chrome are non-profits and companies promising to sell it for a fee (preferably not a subscription).

> The only companies that should be allowed to buy Chrome are non-profits and companies promising to sell it for a fee (preferably not a subscription). I am not sure if a single fee works. Browsers are too important and hard to maintain. What if people had paid single fee for Chrome 15 years ago for non-profit?

You could charge for upgrades.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#84

Post by viccis »

sofixa wrote: post #70
viccis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-integratio... tl;dr: It's way overblown. One of their search integration partners is a large Russian company (Yandex).

I don't disagree with the gist of their argument, but the fact that they try to whitewash an actual genocide [1] with "politics" is absurd. 1 - if anyone is confused, the UN convention on genocide explicitly lists taking children of an ethnic group to give them to another in the definition of genocide. Russia is quite openly and blatantly doing this.

My tax dollars are already funding genocide, so for like 10 cents to go towards Yandex a month, of which some fraction goes towards Russia's quixotic war effort (which is an international crime but not a genocide in intent or effect), is not something that's gonna keep me up at night. Almost every other purchase I make comes with harm roughly commensurate with that of Kagi. The damage to the environment Perplexity and Google (and Kagi) cause with unnecessary AI usage is a much bigger concern to me personally.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#85

Post by nicce »

mrweasel wrote: post #81
nicce wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only companies that should be allowed to buy Chrome are non-profits and companies promising to sell it for a fee (preferably not a subscription). I am not sure if a single fee works. Browsers are too important and hard to maintain. What if people had paid single fee for Chrome 15 years ago for non-profit?

You could charge for upgrades.

I don't think that it works with browsers. Otherwise web standards will not progress very well, since everyone tries to support the first Chrome version for their website. We create even more friction than having different browsers already has.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#86

Post by rpgbr »

spandrew wrote: post #11
sudenmorsian wrote: post #5

If there was any company that I would trust less with a web browser (and related user data) than an ad-tech company, it would be an AI company.

A social media ad company would be the least favourable. At least Google's central ad business is based off of search queries the user gives to them willingly for value.

This was the case, like, 20 years ago. Google is effectively an ad company that makes tech — including a browser — to gather more data from users and sell ads.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#87

Post by sofixa »

viccis wrote: post #84
sofixa wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with the gist of their argument, but the fact that they try to whitewash an actual genocide [1] with "politics" is absurd. 1 - if anyone is confused, the UN convention on genocide explicitly lists taking children of an ethnic group to give them to another in the definition of genocide. Russia is quite openly and blatantly doing this.

My tax dollars are already funding genocide, so for like 10 cents to go towards Yandex a month, of which some fraction goes towards Russia's quixotic war effort (which is an international crime but not a genocide in intent or effect), is not something that's gonna keep me up at night. Almost every other purchase I make comes with harm roughly commensurate with that of Kagi. The damage to the environment Perplexity an…

> which is an international crime but not a genocide in intent or effect)

Why not? Russia has kidnapped hundreds of thousands of children, gives them for adoption to Russians, and claims that Ukrainians are just confused Russians.

If it smells like a genocide, fits the definition of genocide... it's a genocide.

> The damage to the environment Perplexity and Google (and Kagi) cause with unnecessary AI usage is a much bigger concern to me personally.

Multiple things can be damaging at once.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#88

Post by jamil7 »

Aurornis wrote: post #54
tuesdaynight wrote: post #7

These marketing stunts from Perplexity made me stop using their product. For me, it's an indicator that they don't believe in their product, so there's no reason for me to do it either.

I've tried to use Perplexity after reading all of the hype, seeing it praised by so many VCs, and seeing it appear on so many different lists of essential AI tools. Yet most of my Perplexity queries have produced poor results. It always feels like they optimized for minimizing latency and producing output that feels good instead of doing actual research. Most of the time it feels like the same quality of results I'd…

I think the UX is good and could imagine it being applied well to a much better research tool.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#89

Post by mrweasel »

nicce wrote: post #85
mrweasel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could charge for upgrades.

I don't think that it works with browsers. Otherwise web standards will not progress very well, since everyone tries to support the first Chrome version for their website. We create even more friction than having different browsers already has.

My take is the reverse. It would slow down development of web standard, which is a good thing, and allow competitors to develop and catch up.

We want more browser engines, and slowing down development, e.g. to yearly, every two, or every three year for major releases would go a long way to ensure that.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#90

Post by dcreater »

rvz wrote: post #3

This is not a serious offer. Even if it was, is a low-ball one for a browser like Chrome. (Why did they choose that figure given they know they don't have the money). Also they do not have anywhere close to having the money or stock value to buy it. So this is just for attention grabbing for the headlines. Move along now, nothing to see here.

It sounds like yet another PR stunt from these guys
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