Who is going to replace Google for us? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#91

Post by encryptluks2 » Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #57

jmyeet wrote: post #28

The fallacy of youth is that one of extremes. Things are never as bad as they seem. Likewise they're never really as good as they seem. The latter I think explains a lot of nostalgia and holding onto the first "past" we lived through. At the very least it's easy to view that as our baseline. What's "normal", if you will. I say this because as hard as can be to imagine how something like Google will cease to be domina…

The problem isn't one specific wealthy family, it's that wealth is always concentrated on few people. Just because a king dies and gets replaced by another king doesn't help the peasants.

Yeah, makes you wonder what is wrong with Britain?

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#92

Post by axg11 » Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

Arnie0426 wrote: post #15

Google should not be using the same data from different products it owns - or at least give users an option. I really don't want my YouTube Shorts to be impacted by what I saw on YouTube. I don't want my Google News (as @addicted mentioned) to be impacted by my reading habits on YouTube or even my recent search results. Personalization is everywhere but I really hope that Google also allows for customization by the u…

Having worked for a different FAANG, I saw the immense pressure to incorporate data from other products. I imagine there’s a big internal push to aggregate all data from across Google services. It’s an easy win for product managers looking for projects.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#93

Post by Zak » Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

freyr wrote: post #75

Do people miss the Google of old, or the Web of old? The Web used to be very information dense. It was built from the ground up by specialists and enthusiasts, educational and governmental institutions, and groups of like-minded individuals. Then it became commercialized and commodified. Entire industries popped up to shovel mass-produced crap to masses of people through Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. Forums became s…

Much of that still exists. It's just harder to find than it used to be because the corporate stuff is so loud.

There are a lot of little things that could make the non-corporate internet more appealing to the average person. Why, for example can't I have a shared identity across several independent forums? OpenID came out long ago.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#94

Post by lhnz » Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

freyr wrote: post #75

Do people miss the Google of old, or the Web of old? The Web used to be very information dense. It was built from the ground up by specialists and enthusiasts, educational and governmental institutions, and groups of like-minded individuals. Then it became commercialized and commodified. Entire industries popped up to shovel mass-produced crap to masses of people through Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. Forums became s…

  > Maybe there’s a way to restore the Web of old.

Maybe search engines should also be able to link towards old cached content, internet archive style. Even if we can't rejuvenate the old internet without creating new economics to support it, we could keep the information alive.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#95

Post by encryptluks2 » Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

dorfsmay wrote: post #24

addicted wrote: post #5

Google News has become completely worthless for me. It takes my YouTube usage and promotes news stories based on that. But that makes absolutely no sense. I go to YouTube to relax and/or look at things that are not so important. Sudoku solving, gaming news, and/or chess stuff. I used to go to Google News to have an understanding of what’s happening in the world. But now my Google News feed is overridden by stories ab…

Use google news in an incognito window?

You would need incognito, VPN'd, and non-JS tab to not be tracked by websites.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#96

Post by m-i-l » Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #28

The fallacy of youth is that one of extremes. Things are never as bad as they seem. Likewise they're never really as good as they seem. The latter I think explains a lot of nostalgia and holding onto the first "past" we lived through. At the very least it's easy to view that as our baseline. What's "normal", if you will. I say this because as hard as can be to imagine how something like Google will cease to be domina…

> "In 100 years the descendants of Bezos won't be the ruling class in the same way the Vanderbilts, Astors, Rockefellers, Carnegies and Morgans aren't."

Andrew Carnegie believed in 100% inheritance tax, on the condition that the money raised was used to provide a level playing field for absolutely everyone to have the same opportunities. I can't imagine many/any of today's billionaires believing this, given that pretty much all of them have depended on the backing of generational wealth and the unequal opportunities that gave them to make their fortunes.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#97

Post by jfim » Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

freyr wrote: post #75

Do people miss the Google of old, or the Web of old? The Web used to be very information dense. It was built from the ground up by specialists and enthusiasts, educational and governmental institutions, and groups of like-minded individuals. Then it became commercialized and commodified. Entire industries popped up to shovel mass-produced crap to masses of people through Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. Forums became s…

Google also has an outsized influence on the kind of content that's on the web.

At some point in the past, from what I remember, they started ranking blog content lower than more "authoritative" sources, hastening the decline of personal blogging. If you're wondering why every recipe on the internet has ten paragraphs on how this recipe is their grandmother's favorite and how it reminds the author of the freshness of summer produce, it's because that's the kind of content that Google will give a high ranking.

The web was a better place when it was quirkier, and there's probably a ton of quirky content that still exists, but it won't get surfaced by search engines that much these days, and it's buried under tons of garbage.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#98

Post by softwarebeware » Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

jsnell wrote: post #52

The most concrete complaints in this piece appear to be: - Google News includes stories from a source that the author doesn't want anyone else to be able to see. (If they just didn't want to see those stories themselves, then there's an easily accessible "hide sources from XXX" entry in the context menu). - Generic complaints about shopping searches returning links to Amazon, or pages having referral links to Amazon.…

The Epoch Times isn’t just a “source” that some people don’t want to see. And gmail etc has a shit ton of ads. This comment isn’t a reasonable critique of the article it’s denialism at best

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#99

Post by dixego » Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

xkbarkar wrote: post #81

jsnell wrote: post #52

The most concrete complaints in this piece appear to be: - Google News includes stories from a source that the author doesn't want anyone else to be able to see. (If they just didn't want to see those stories themselves, then there's an easily accessible "hide sources from XXX" entry in the context menu). - Generic complaints about shopping searches returning links to Amazon, or pages having referral links to Amazon.…

Yea I thought the same. Sounded more like fragile “milennial” complaint than an actual good article with solid facts. You could find 100 solid ways to distrust google. Didnt think the author hit a single credible point.

If you don't think "Breitbart is not a credible news source" is not a valid point then oof, yikes, etc.

Re: Who is going to replace Google for us?

#100

Post by jmyeet » Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

ericmcer wrote: post #72

jmyeet wrote: post #28

The fallacy of youth is that one of extremes. Things are never as bad as they seem. Likewise they're never really as good as they seem. The latter I think explains a lot of nostalgia and holding onto the first "past" we lived through. At the very least it's easy to view that as our baseline. What's "normal", if you will. I say this because as hard as can be to imagine how something like Google will cease to be domina…

They do work themselves out, but sometimes the timeline for that can be 50+ years. Which is basically your entire youth and productive lifetime. It is pretty cold comfort to know that income inequality that makes home ownership an impossibility right now will work itself out in a few decades.

> They do work themselves out, but sometimes the timeline for that can be 50+ years.

So if Google ends up being dominant for 50+ years does it really matter? I mean, does that somehow materially impact your life?

> It is pretty cold comfort to know that income inequality that makes home ownership an impossibility right now will work itself out in a few decades.

That's a completely separate issue and one I agree with you on. But the US in particularly has too many brain-broken temporarily embarrassed millionaires who will die on the hill to avoid Jeff Bezos paying slightly more in tax to pay for th esociety that made his wealth possible and continues to make it possible.

This is late-stage capitalism. Some argue it's the beginning of neo-feudalism. I'm not quite that pessimistic whiele agreeing the situation sucks.

What people in power need to realize is the ultimate valve for extreme wealth inequality is violence. War or revolution is the ultimate form of wealth redistribution.

But the political landscape in the US is one where just arguing that trans people shouldn't be murdered gets you labelled as "far left". America is not ready to have the conversation that a capitalist organization of the economy is screwing them over.

Personally if I was 22 and just graduating college with huge debt, no prospect of owning a house and income that means living paycheck to paycheck I would just... leave [1].

[1]: https://www.studentloanplanner.com/flee-country-student-loan...