OTOH, people have trouble using GMail, google home, or ban YouTube in their house for their kids. Next to no one uses Android, etc.
and if one wants to experience real search results difference, just switch back to, say, duckduckgo for a bit, and see how many times you just end up giving up and googling stuff instead.
My perception is that search queries need to be much more specific in order to avoid SEO trash as well. It used to be fairly common to find special interest forums when looking for product reviews. Now the first page is almost exclusively auto-generated spam sites referral linking to Amazon product pages. Adding "Reddit" sometimes provides helpful advice but there's often a lack of in depth insight that was present before.
So what was relatively relevant back then is now irrelevant to a general audience and as a result has been pushed back. You could argue Google should bias search much more towards individual history but that has its own pitfalls, both in terms of results and privacy wise.
Basically blame your fellow searchers for clicking and wanting big brand stuff, Google just gives you what the internet considers relevant.
If I was trying to cater to a broader set of use cases and users, I'd probably have more of Google's problems as a result.
This cost many minutes most times and is seriously annoying because the search engine ignores me and lies to me.
Machines shouldn't do that.
Wait, what?
Who's in the bubble now?
What fraction of the world’s wealth (easier to measure than influence) runs on Android? Elon using iOS has more influence than how many impoverished billions?
This is why German and Japanese are often localized before other languages with more speakers.
Not saying it’s right, but just pointing out the reality. The world runs based on the decision makers, who use iOS.
Does he buy that many phones? /S
I agree with your point, but catering to luxury users certainly has an advantage. Android, globally, is doing ok.
It's not even an American bubble. Some sources show that the iPhine market share in the US is only slightly above 50%.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/north-amer...
[0]: https://deviceatlas.com/blog/mobile-os-popularity-by-us-stat...
If you mostly associate with people who are on pre-paid cell phone plans they got at Walmart or a gas station, you'll see a high concentration of Android. Among people who are in technology or often purchase luxury goods, most your friends with have iPhones.
Obviously it's a bell curve - not all Android users are cheap and not all iPhone users are luxary goods providers, but my experience (Australia) reflects this generalisation broadly.
We generally assume too much about the shared knowledge basis. There would be much less friction if we could improve on that
But try to find a specific error message from an npm package!
First you get useless results because Google found something it rather wanted to show you.
Then you add doublequotes and realize the Google results are full of utterly irrelevant pages lacking half my keywords.
Seems like a self-selection bias, possibly based on socio-economic factors that determine who you surround yourself with.
In my personal circles, I only know 1 person who uses iPhone, everyone else uses android.
> Next to no one uses Android, etc.
That is sarcasm right? I can't quite tell.
> For the first time ever, there are more iPhones in use in the US than any other type of smartphone. Citing data from analytics firm Counterpoint Research, the Financial Times reports the iPhone overtook the entire Android ecosystem in June to claim 50 percent of US market share
[...]
> By 2010, two years after its debut, Android overtook iOS to claim the larger install base. Ever since then, Google’s mobile operating system has been the dominant force in the global smartphone market, claiming more than 70 percent market share as of 2022, according to Statcounter.
https://www.engadget.com/iphone-overtakes-android-us-market-...
Claiming "next to no one uses Android" is just plain wrong even in the US.
TikTok search is apparently better. My version of that is "site:reddit.com", but even that's gotten worse as the culture there becomes more censorious, echo-chambery, and more insane.
Google is for searching new sources of information and either it’s instant (google info box) or takes too long which makes a lasting memory about it being painful.
I don't think the issue for this is with changes Google has made, but rather with the increasing extent to which it's targeted by SEO spam.
Same with IE, if no one showed them Firefox they just stuck with IE.
HN is a much more distinguished community possessing vast technical knowledge. We can approach products from beyond the level of the everyday person and can give deeper appraisal of their worth. Some here may have even built those products, or at least could build a distilled version of them in a weekend for fun.