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Comment by breadwinner | Hacker News Reader

Google is turning into Alta Vista right before our eyes!

I have replaced Google with Perplexity. It backs up every answer with links, so I find it to be more trustable than ChatGPT.

Perplexity also keeps their index current, so you're not getting answers from the world as it existed 10 months ago. (ChatGPT says its knowledge cutoff is June 2024, Perplexity says its search index includes results up to April 29, 2025, and to prove it, it gives me the latest news.)

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As a search vehicle, absolutely. But they aren't sitting idly by - as much as I personally hate it, a lot of people like Gemini. Either way, it does spell a big danger to their primary source of revenue.

What's interesting is the monetization aspect. Right now none of them act as ad vehicles. Who will be the first to fall?

Ads are not the only challenge. Cost-per-query is also a challenge, as an LLM query is 10x more expensive than a search-index query.

Is that all? I hadn't thought about that aspect, but I find it a little surprising that, even just considering post-training, it isn't more expensive than that.

I would assume (at minimum) 100x, but have not done any napkin math.

I'm pretty sure Perplexity attempted to place ads within their responses but had a large backlash.

I worry that LLMs will subtly sneak in commercial bias in return for money.

ChatGPT just announced embedded shopping. Sounds like another name for ads to me.

Google invented the Transformer architecture and Gemini 2.5 is state of the art

They have done it all with their own custom silicon (TPUs, no Nvidia)

> Google invented the Transformer architecture

That's like saying AT&T invented the graphical user interface. It doesn't matter because AT&T failed to commercialize it.

But they are commercializing it. Same as OpenAI.

They have lower costs, less overhead without the Nvidia tax.

They were late to commercialize it... someone else had to show them how first. As a result they are playing catch up, and they will at best be one of many players, for the foreseeable future, as opposed to a monopoly.

Nitpicky maybe, but I think "someone had to show them" is a little off the mark. Google had no incentive to start using AI to deliver answers, because Search was making lots of money. It's not that "someone had to", it's that "someone did". And when they did, Google pivoted.

>They were late to commercialize it... someone else had to show them how first. As a result they are playing catch up, and they will at best be one of many players, for the foreseeable future, as opposed to a monopoly.

This isn't a hype cycle they need to catch. It's the final technology. Steady and stable will win here.

A few months head start won’t make much difference in the long run. They have already taken the lead according to many benchmarks.

I believe it's a general consensus. I thought it was just me but I also thought it couldn't be just me. We've been reading for years how Google results have sucked and specially the past 12 months it seems to have gotten worse and worse. Meanwhile with ChatGPT, I no longer need to use Google-Fu to find my way around stuff, which is good because the past year it feels like no amount of decades using Google were helping me find any results. It does feel like the fall of AltaVista but without the company going under.

> without the company going under

That's too soon to say. We're only at the first down.

ChatGPT with Search mode turned on correctly answered who won Canada's election that happened yesterday, with sources.

From Gemini

Based on reports from today, April 29, 2025, a Canadian federal election was held on Monday, April 28, 2025.

The Liberal Party, led by Mark Carney, won the election. Therefore, Mark Carney is the candidate who has won the position of Prime Minister. Reports indicate this is the Liberal Party's fourth consecutive term in power. It's still being determined in some initial reports whether they will form a majority or a minority government.

Sources and related content (links provided)

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