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We can agree to disagree about Google's immortality, but I take issue with you treating DDG and Bing as serious challengers to Google. Obviously Microsoft has n

We can agree to disagree about Google's immortality, but I take issue with you treating DDG and Bing as serious challengers to Google. Obviously Microsoft has no chance, they're worse off than Google re: ossification and Bing is a hedge at best. DDG is one step above a lifestyle business and only innovates at the UI level, even their efforts there are forgettable. Their major differentiator (data privacy) is meaningless to almost all users, and ironically torpedoes many interesting monetization strategies that are not ad-focused, as well as research initiatives. Baidu and Yandex are serious but are comfortable in their respective positions. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Google challenger spring up from the other side of the world, where Google's position may not be seen as so unassailable.

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
> We can agree to disagree about Google's immortality Dude where did I say Google is immortal? I'm just saying it's a wrong approach to try to kill google this way. There are many good ways to do it and coming from "How do i disrupt Google" is the worst possible way. > Obviously Microsoft has no chance, they're worse off than Google re: ossification and Bing is a hedge at best. Nothing is obvious when we talk about disruption. Why does Microsoft have no chance? I am pretty sure they keep Bing alive because they are looking at the future where they finally gain control over the platform via VR/AR/or whatever, and then use Bing to power the experience on those platforms, which actually may be the case Google can't compete against. But this is Microsoft. If you're a small startup, you shouldn't be doing this. > DDG is one step above a lifestyle business and only innovates at the UI level, even their efforts there are forgettable. Their major differentiator (data privacy) is meaningless to almost all users, and ironically torpedoes many interesting monetization strategies that are not ad-focused, as well as research initiatives. Privacy is a great feature, especially in 2017, and I think DDG has the highest chance of getting any market share with this "let's make a search engine to disrupt google" approach (but again, this likely won't happen and is a foolish approach. It will stay down there as an "alternative" until the founder runs out of steam, OR if there's a huge shift in how people experience the Internet and somehow takes off completely independent from the company's effort) > Baidu and Yandex are serious but are comfortable in their respective positions. Baidu and Yandex will never work out side of their countries because of the cultural barrier. In fact it's not just those, every country with significant Internet penetration rate has their own dominant search engine. In those countries Google is nothing. Which means this cuts both ways. So No. Baidu and Yandex are NOT serious contenders just like Google is not a serious contender in Russia and China.
- thesmallestcat 10y ago
  OK, I get it, you're itching for a debate, and we've now reached the quote/reply "fun zone." I could tell it's cloudy out and you'd say how you saw some blue sky earlier. Or that the sky isn't really blue.
- bshimmin 10y ago
  I wonder, is DuckDuckGo's name a problem for adoption? I have no idea what it's supposed to mean, but it sounds very silly and I don't much enjoy recommending it to people in real life, at least in part for that reason. ("Google" was a silly name too, but at least it was just one syllable of silliness.) Privacy is probably slowly growing into a big deal in the minds of regular people, but when the incumbent works, and works better (in my experience Google does just return better results than DDG - and I really did give it a try, in earnest, for a solid week a few months back...), privacy alone isn't going to be enough at this point.
  - jaredsohn 10y ago
    >I have no idea what it's supposed to mean I've understood it to be a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose; the wikipedia article on duckduckgo confirms.
    - bshimmin 10y ago
      Is this an American thing? I have never heard of it.
      - cassowary 10y ago
        I played Duck Duck Goose when I was a kid in Australia.
        gregjw 10y ago
        I played Duck Duck Goose when I was a kid in the United Kingdom.
greglindahl 10y ago
While google has a much stronger brand than bing, they give roughly equivalent results except for a few categories such as "paste the error message I just got into the search box" queries. Google's much better for those longer queries. HN readers are probably more likely than average to make them, too.
- cassowary 10y ago
  Hm yeah. I use DDG except for error messages when I use Google.

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago

> We can agree to disagree about Google's immortality Dude where did I say Google is immortal? I'm just saying it's a wrong approach to try to kill google this way. There are many good ways to do it and coming from "How do i disrupt Google" is the worst possible way. > Obviously Microsoft has no chance, they're worse off than Google re: ossification and Bing is a hedge at best. Nothing is obvious when we talk about disruption. Why does Microsoft have no chance? I am pretty sure they keep Bing alive because they are looking at the future where they finally gain control over the platform via VR/AR/or whatever, and then use Bing to power the experience on those platforms, which actually may be the case Google can't compete against. But this is Microsoft. If you're a small startup, you shouldn't be doing this. > DDG is one step above a lifestyle business and only innovates at the UI level, even their efforts there are forgettable. Their major differentiator (data privacy) is meaningless to almost all users, and ironically torpedoes many interesting monetization strategies that are not ad-focused, as well as research initiatives. Privacy is a great feature, especially in 2017, and I think DDG has the highest chance of getting any market share with this "let's make a search engine to disrupt google" approach (but again, this likely won't happen and is a foolish approach. It will stay down there as an "alternative" until the founder runs out of steam, OR if there's a huge shift in how people experience the Internet and somehow takes off completely independent from the company's effort) > Baidu and Yandex are serious but are comfortable in their respective positions. Baidu and Yandex will never work out side of their countries because of the cultural barrier. In fact it's not just those, every country with significant Internet penetration rate has their own dominant search engine. In those countries Google is nothing. Which means this cuts both ways. So No. Baidu and Yandex are NOT serious contenders just like Google is not a serious contender in Russia and China.

thesmallestcat 10y ago
OK, I get it, you're itching for a debate, and we've now reached the quote/reply "fun zone." I could tell it's cloudy out and you'd say how you saw some blue sky earlier. Or that the sky isn't really blue.
bshimmin 10y ago
I wonder, is DuckDuckGo's name a problem for adoption? I have no idea what it's supposed to mean, but it sounds very silly and I don't much enjoy recommending it to people in real life, at least in part for that reason. ("Google" was a silly name too, but at least it was just one syllable of silliness.) Privacy is probably slowly growing into a big deal in the minds of regular people, but when the incumbent works, and works better (in my experience Google does just return better results than DDG - and I really did give it a try, in earnest, for a solid week a few months back...), privacy alone isn't going to be enough at this point.
- jaredsohn 10y ago
  >I have no idea what it's supposed to mean I've understood it to be a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose; the wikipedia article on duckduckgo confirms.
  - bshimmin 10y ago
    Is this an American thing? I have never heard of it.
    - cassowary 10y ago
      I played Duck Duck Goose when I was a kid in Australia.
      - gregjw 10y ago
        I played Duck Duck Goose when I was a kid in the United Kingdom.

greglindahl 10y ago

While google has a much stronger brand than bing, they give roughly equivalent results except for a few categories such as "paste the error message I just got into the search box" queries. Google's much better for those longer queries. HN readers are probably more likely than average to make them, too.

cassowary 10y ago
Hm yeah. I use DDG except for error messages when I use Google.