Ask HN: If you could only use one, would you pick Google or Reddit? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: If you could only use one, would you pick Google or Reddit?

14 pointsloveparade31 comments

A couple years back the answer for me would've been Google. These days, I really wouldn't mind if Google went away, but I would really miss reddit. My use case for Google is mostly as a reddit search engine anyway.

EDIT: I meant Google Search only, not the rest of Google.

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Google maps, email, search (as a backend to privacy respecting gateways), Android and... I feel like I'm just getting warmed up.

Google and it's not even close.

Reddit is a good way to connect. But it's social media. There's lots of players here. Reddit's strength was the (false) perception that it was 'one of us'.

Reddit (via /u/spez) made it clear that they'll step over their users. They made it clear that to engage in conversation with them - you need everything well documented (and recorded). They feel dirty to me now.

The users made reddit. Seems like many are headed to the fediverse. It may never have the numbers reddit has but it seems destined to carry its spirit. See you there...

lol. And Bitcoin will replace the dollar.

If Google search goes away I can at least use Bing or DuckDuckGo or something. I could also get really far just by searching other sites directly.

Also, I know this isn't true for most people, but there are a handful of Subreddits that are basically essential for my real life. For example, there is a subreddit for the neighborhood I live in. It has 50k+ people in there. It's better than any local news outlet. Getting all those people to gather at some other site would be extremely difficult if not impossible. If it disappeared our local community would be severely harmed.

This is definitely apples and oranges. The only product comparable to Reddit was Google+. I think people like to blame Google search for why people append Reddit to search strings, but that has a lot more to do with how Reddit has consumed so many independent forums that used to self-host.

Bing matches Google. HN is often times a better , smarter Reddit.

I'm keeping Google

I only recently joined Reddit, mostly for the Tears of the Kingdom game leak and making it work 2 weeks before the official release, then this mess. I signed up for Lemmy, really couldn't care or less if Reddit dies or not.

A quick poll to keep the tally https://urbanpoll.com/polls/google-or-reddit-poll-pqy8rsk9

A Google ad market implosion would be so good for the internet... And dare I say, all of humanity.

I could live without google search or reddit results, but I would be minorly annoyed with the loss of either.

People act like Reddit is this great source of information, but it seems pretty shakey or uninformed whenever I search for something specific. Seems like all the good info is being siloed away in Discord now.

Google search, meanwhile, has deteriorated, but it still indexes obscure things I can't find on other search engines.

This is a tougher question than I initially thought. To be honest, I really don't care much for either anymore.

I rely on phind for my internet searches, while ChatGPT serves me for figuring out anything. If needed, I could always revert back to bing for internet scraping.

Honestly, I have grown to somewhat dislike both. I suppose I wouldn't mind eliminating either and seeing which one I miss more.

I’m the CEO of Phind. What have you grown to dislike and how can we make it better?

"Dislike both={Google,Reddit}" would be my interpretation here.

That's a great question!

The results are great, but it does take a little bit of time to show up, but that's expected with today's technology.

The thing that keeps me from using it instead of Google are really things like having a map show up or news results or photos.

That and the fact that I can't make it a default search in Safari or that easily.

Gotcha, that all makes sense. We’ll be making it faster shortly. And we’ll look into making it easier to set as the default on Safari.

I'd pick reddit. There are a lot of genuinely good communities and a lot of knowledge sharing.

Google, I could not care less about. Bing Search FTW!

I don't know why I wrote Bing Search instead of Brave Search. I'd never use Bing Search for anything other than reverse image search haha.

I would pick none because they're both awful companies.

I've already de-googled. As of a few days ago, I de-reddited.

There's:

- Objective, general knowledge: Wikipedia

- Objective, general news: AP & Reuters

- "How do I XXX?": Stack Exchange (they have similar issues to Reddit but not as bad, and the actual site is 100x better)

There's also a lot of sites with good, reliable info but only in specific areas:

- Technical documentation or specifications: MDN Docs, Rust Docs, pipi (Python) docs, Apple docs, ...

- Quality tech tips: refactoring.guru, CSS Tricks, ...

- Quality tech articles: fasterthanli.me, faultlore.com, xeiaso.net, lwn.net, ... (many more examples which post much less frequently)

- Figure out which libraries to use: "XXX github", "awesome XXX". or "awesome XXX github"

- Biased tech anecdotes, product reviews, opinions; and tech news: Hacker News

- High quality articles on random subjects: ciechanow.ski, ...

I'm sure there are good sites for other knowledge (cooking, cycling, etc.), but I don't know them. Which is the big problem Google or Reddit is supposed to solve. But I bet some people could make a shared list. Then, if you filter to these sites you get information with even better quality than Google or Reddit.

I pay money to avoid Google.

I de-Googled in every way except Maps.

Reddit does nothing I need.

Sadly I don’t know a better service than Google Maps. I may try Apple Maps, but old habits die hard.

If I was forced to use one, I’d pick Reddit, since they only shit on people’s pride.

Google, unless Reddit upgraded their search. I can't find stuff on Reddit without Google, and I can't find quality reviews and (lesser quality) opinions on Google without reddit.

Google. The quality of communication on forum sites is extremely low, and if Reddit wasn’t my only access point to a handful of niche communities I’d just never use it again anyway.

Nothing yet to compete with Google Adsense for small website publishers. Have never got much involved with Reddit other than occasional links that point there.

Google. Reddit has some top-drawer information but I find the site virtually unusable and wince every time I have to.

If it’s any google products including Gmail and YouTube, then I give up Reddit.

If it’s just google search, then I would keep Reddit.

Another vote for ChatGPT.

Google is ad-ridden and results are crappy (have been for a long time)

reddit is good, but ehhhh… it can be a mixed bag.

All of google or just google search?

I've been mostly happy with DDG but still use google maps.

Google is an ad company whereas Reddit is something I'm not quite sure.

Google gives more software to the word Open & Proprietary…

Reddit gives more content & community to the world…

Hard to say, but I feel Reddit is “less important” and “more replaceable” than Google’s empire…

I currently use neither, so get rid of both.

Chatgpt

Google, hands down.

they are completely different... so why? Google.

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