Why can't Google find answers though they are right under it's nose? | Hacker News Reader

Why can't Google find answers though they are right under it's nose?

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33 pointswakahiu10 comments

People realized they can make money online. As a result search engine rankings became very important. An industry of search engine optimization was created and raised the bar on what it takes to be at the top of search. This created an adversarial relationship between moneyed interests and real users. People often want boring content but somebody can make money from wasting your time, and so they can spend some of that money to ensure you will come to them. Not by directly paying whoever has your attention but by doing absolutely everything else. The good content everyone wants is simply not spending enough resources to be seen. That's what the game settled on. And I'm not sure how you can change these dynamics.

Could be because optimizing for ad sales / clicks doesn't require it.

More importantly, ads require that you DON'T find it, so that you keep looking and keep getting exposed to more ads.

Ive started using duckduckgo not just for privacy reasons, but because its a better search engine for many things. This wasnt the case just years ago. The only reason ill use google is if Im shopping for something niche.

Related discussion on the article Google Search is Dying - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30347719

I switched to Neeva[1] a few weeks ago and haven't felt the need to use google since. It's not 2005 Google quality, but it's got a good UI and dark theme, and the results are pretty excellent (ad free, private).

[1] https://neeva.com/about

Lots of questionable people behind that. Head of monetization at YouTube? Head of ads at Google? Keep scrolling and their investors aren't much better. Why won't they pivot to selling info as soon as they have market share?

If you're concerned about ads and privacy, your info and eyes are probably worth more than an average click elsewhere.

Maybe I've just gotten cynical.

I guess I'm wondering if you're already using Google services, does any of that matter? Which search you use isn't a life commitment.

Search engines have been around for less than 30 years. I've used dozens in that time, and I plan to continue trying new ones, Neeva included. If they do something shitty, I'll bail.

It matters in principle, but probably not in practice.

If it comes down to choosing who next to make rich off search, why reward those who've already benefited creating the modern status quo?

And if these people were passionate about end user privacy and rights, their positions within Alphabet we're much better poised to make a difference than spinning up a new search engine.

Maybe their experience makes them perfect to compete and their intentions are good. Search is too ripe with opportunity and too difficult to keep useful that a regression towards profit at all costs is mandatory.

If tracking and targeted ads are a given, just give me the ability to blacklist seo spam, unwanted ads, and other low quality content. That's the killer app. Track away, just give me some control.

They've already taken a bunch of VC. There's a 100% chance of them breaking bad as soon as they've got a big enough user base that it's worth squeezing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com