Google is killing infinite scroll on search results | Hacker News Reader

Google is killing infinite scroll on search results

theverge.com

25 pointsjmsflknr9 comments

Well, even though I called out Google is dying a while back, credit where it's due - infinite scroll is one of the worst ux for a list of things.

I strongly feel like infinite scroll was the harbinger of the dark pattern web. It broke the back button. It broke the idea that a list of results could be a static thing. It began the transition from sensible user-friendly ordering of items to algorithmic ordering. It was the first step towards "addictive-UX"

I hope they bring back goooooooooooogle

(Google is killing search results, downright).-

It's hard to blame them, most of the well monetized expansive web content is deep web, pay walled, brittle, mixed media, copyrighted, and not enabled for something like microtransactions, subject to GDPR, and doesn't make them a dime.

Exactly — capitalisms goal isn't to create a good service, it is to extract money, hence a good CEO will take a perfectly fine service and maximize revenue by extracting value even if it means the service gets worse.

Now ideally that would mean the service then dies or gets surpassed by competitors, but that mechanism only works if we are not talking about monopolists, that e.g. have the power to make themselves the default on browsers and operating systems.

But ... "merit", you know, the (in theory) mechanism by which quality (ie. "non-worse") products gain market share, ergo increasing revenue? (Seriously wondering).-

That is why I pointed out the non-level playing field, this has to do with defaults and what information is given to people.

If you are e.g. a small browser manufacturer and microsoft pushes Edge, google pushes Chrome and both try theie best to actively prevent/scare people from installing everything else, that playing field is effectively not level for you. There is no market if your competitor is preinstalled on nearly all phones.

Sure you can now try to grab tech conscious people, but because they are few you will have to follow changes tour bigger competitors are making etc.

I wonder if this might be a preemptive move to stop Google from falling under addictive social media style legislation that would presumably ban infinite scroll.

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