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Comment by brookst | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the excellent summary. Though I think the article and summary miss the root cause: Google Search has two masters, users and advertisers. These stakeholders’ interests are not aligned, and by taking one middle road after another, Google has deteriorated into near-uselessness for end users, relying on scale rather than quality.

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> Google Search has two masters, users and advertisers

No, it doesn't. It has one master: advertisers. Advertisers are the customer. Users are the product. Search results are the bait.

This is self-evidently true. Your customer is the one who pays for your services. Google's users don't pay, never have, never will, because search is not a product you can sell.

User attention, on the other hand, is a very valuable commodity for which people will pay handsomely.

You’re engaging in some sleight of hand by first saying attention is not payment, and later that it is.

The currencies are different but Google absolutely needs to satisfice two disparate customers.

No. Users are engaging in a barter transaction. It's not different currencies, it's the complete absence of currency. Barter transactions are symmetric. You could as easily say that Google is the user's customer.

Users are Google customers in the same way that (say) fish are a fisherman's customer. Fisherman engage in barter transaction with fish, offering them bait (food, or at least the prospect of food) in exchange for allowing themselves to be sold as a product to a third party who gives the fisherman actual money. That is what makes the third party the fisherman's customer and not the fish. Likewise, Google engages in barter transactions with users, offering them bait (useful information, or at least the prospect of useful information) in exchange for allowing their attention to be sold to a third party for actual money. The money is what makes the advertiser Google's actual customer and not the user.

Apologies, thought we were talking economics, where barter is every bit as legitimate as cash. But you’re talking polemics where there’s moral failing in Google’s and user’s parts. Fair enough.

I didn't say barter was illegitimate, I said it was symmetric. There are salient differences between barter transactions and currency transactions even from a purely economic perspective. It has nothing to do with morality or polemics. There is a reason money is a thing.

> > Google Search has two masters, users and advertisers

> No, it doesn't. It has one master: advertisers. Advertisers are the customer. Users are the product. Search results are the bait.

I wouldn't put it that strictly. Users are still masters in that they can continue to use Google or not.

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