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Hi, Definitely good points, but I disagree with them. 1) The issue is not with search result quality for a given query. In fact, I agree that such quality wou

Hi, Definitely good points, but I disagree with them. 1) The issue is not with search result quality for a given query. In fact, I agree that such quality would be difficult to match. But this is a very specific, very polished feature. It is by no means the only way to deliver a quality user experience. Rather, the issue (and perhaps this is just one issue with many more I am unaware of) is that the search space of possible queries is limited to a small number of dimensions. 2) Definitely under no illusion that there is a demand for transparency on the algorithm. However, if that information is a successfully-guarded secret, nobody else is going to create an incremental improvement over that specific type of feature. 3) You have two incorrect assumptions here. Not all users want the same thing. But more importantly, there is absolutely no reason why more customization means that the UI must become more complex. A company like Google is smart enough to see that. If you have more customization, it can be offered through an API. Even if not offered through an API, you could see open-source browser plugins to create a custom page, with no clutter and no knobs. And likely a fast search experience with some effort. 4) Absolutely false! The point of my post was to illustrate that the failed strategy of "imitate the UI with a better/different algorithm under the hood" will never work. Your point regarding scale is a good one, and it is exactly part of the reason why I believe that peer to peer blockchain technologies will be the likely place for this dethroning to occur. Users can collectively contribute their own little piece of the network, sometimes even being paid by doing so (refer to Steemit for a proof-of-concept). There are a lot of interesting ideas in some of the Ethereum distributed app whitepapers. Most of those ideas will never be successfully built, but there are enough of them where we will see some successes. Then the industry will learn from the mistakes that were made, and we will see a new paradigm. I think this will happen rapidly over the course of a few years. I already have specific conceptual ideas for how a search engine might operate (URLs can be associated with a reputation rating, various tags, and so on, and not bound to a centralized server).

electic 9y ago
Ah, you wrote the quora post. 1. How else would you like the results to be delivered? It is delivered in browser's search bars. It is delivered by visiting Google.com. It is delivered by voice. It is delivered by mobile devices. It is delivered inside my Nintendo Wii, XBOX, PS3/4, and my Nintendo Switch. It's delivered on my crappy Vizio TV via smart apps. It's even delivered in my car. Google search results are everywhere. 2. I think that is kind of the point. However, you assuming Google is being evil by keeping it a secret. That's not fully the case. A lot of SEO companies would love to see how things are ranked so they can beat it on behalf of their clients. 3. They already have an API and if you really want to customize the query, you can add all kind of query modifiers in the UI. 4. As a developer myself in the crypto space, blockchains make a poor curated database for the very reasons why Google keeps things a secret. Anyone with money can pump the reputation of an entry on the blockchain to get better rankings thus lowering the quality of results. Second, most blockchains can't handle the query load. Three, dapps cost money to run. I can see a market for users submitting entries. If there are users using it, it might catch on in the submission department. However, this brings me to my next point. Four, the chain would not have all the websites on the net. Kind of expensive to get it all on there and not scalable. Lastly, someone has to pay to run the query side too. Would users pay to run a search query and get gamed incomplete results? No.
- Nuzzerino 9y ago
  I can't respond to all of your points right now but I am interested in your comments about the blockchain. As a developer in the crypto space, I'm surprised that you're apparently not aware that reputation doesn't need to be tied to stake in order to exist. But even more surprising is that you're making an argument that people with money can abuse the reputation system, when the very reason that it is tied to stake is to make it prohibitively expensive to abuse that sort of thing. Decentralized tribunal systems are in the works (I designed one myself in 2011), to further make the network more resistant to such things. Regarding your comment about blockchains and query load, you also seem to be unaware as a developer that blockchains are a source of truth, not a front-end. A user request does not cause a query to the blockchain. A network of server nodes can exist, with cached results. The servers themselves can have their own reputation system, or the entire front-end experience can be managed by a single centralized entity without compromising the use-case of decentralization. Specifically, if the owners of the front-end were to act in bad faith, it would be much, much less expensive for someone else to spin up another identical front-end (most likely open-source as there would be a lot of early criticism if it wasn't). Regarding expenses and costs, solving that problem is part of the hard work. If I were building the system, I would probably not start out with the entire Internet being the scope. Perhaps as a proof of concept I'd start with Wikipedia only. I know for sure that paying for each search query is a non-starter, as that has a psychological effect of being punished for using the service, when you want it to feel rewarding instead.
  - electic 9y ago
    Right. Sure, you could cache it. I will give you that. But you have to index the entire internet for it to be interesting to anyone. The first Google did that. It indexed most of the pages out there. Why? Because the instant I search once, twice, three times and find nothing. I am abandoning the system. Blockchain aside, it doesn't matter. Whatever system you build has to be 10x better than the current system. Nothing you have said, blockchain usage included, comes close to getting there.
    - Nuzzerino 9y ago

electic 9y ago

Ah, you wrote the quora post. 1. How else would you like the results to be delivered? It is delivered in browser's search bars. It is delivered by visiting Google.com. It is delivered by voice. It is delivered by mobile devices. It is delivered inside my Nintendo Wii, XBOX, PS3/4, and my Nintendo Switch. It's delivered on my crappy Vizio TV via smart apps. It's even delivered in my car. Google search results are everywhere. 2. I think that is kind of the point. However, you assuming Google is being evil by keeping it a secret. That's not fully the case. A lot of SEO companies would love to see how things are ranked so they can beat it on behalf of their clients. 3. They already have an API and if you really want to customize the query, you can add all kind of query modifiers in the UI. 4. As a developer myself in the crypto space, blockchains make a poor curated database for the very reasons why Google keeps things a secret. Anyone with money can pump the reputation of an entry on the blockchain to get better rankings thus lowering the quality of results. Second, most blockchains can't handle the query load. Three, dapps cost money to run. I can see a market for users submitting entries. If there are users using it, it might catch on in the submission department. However, this brings me to my next point. Four, the chain would not have all the websites on the net. Kind of expensive to get it all on there and not scalable. Lastly, someone has to pay to run the query side too. Would users pay to run a search query and get gamed incomplete results? No.

Nuzzerino 9y ago
I can't respond to all of your points right now but I am interested in your comments about the blockchain. As a developer in the crypto space, I'm surprised that you're apparently not aware that reputation doesn't need to be tied to stake in order to exist. But even more surprising is that you're making an argument that people with money can abuse the reputation system, when the very reason that it is tied to stake is to make it prohibitively expensive to abuse that sort of thing. Decentralized tribunal systems are in the works (I designed one myself in 2011), to further make the network more resistant to such things. Regarding your comment about blockchains and query load, you also seem to be unaware as a developer that blockchains are a source of truth, not a front-end. A user request does not cause a query to the blockchain. A network of server nodes can exist, with cached results. The servers themselves can have their own reputation system, or the entire front-end experience can be managed by a single centralized entity without compromising the use-case of decentralization. Specifically, if the owners of the front-end were to act in bad faith, it would be much, much less expensive for someone else to spin up another identical front-end (most likely open-source as there would be a lot of early criticism if it wasn't). Regarding expenses and costs, solving that problem is part of the hard work. If I were building the system, I would probably not start out with the entire Internet being the scope. Perhaps as a proof of concept I'd start with Wikipedia only. I know for sure that paying for each search query is a non-starter, as that has a psychological effect of being punished for using the service, when you want it to feel rewarding instead.
- electic 9y ago
  Right. Sure, you could cache it. I will give you that. But you have to index the entire internet for it to be interesting to anyone. The first Google did that. It indexed most of the pages out there. Why? Because the instant I search once, twice, three times and find nothing. I am abandoning the system. Blockchain aside, it doesn't matter. Whatever system you build has to be 10x better than the current system. Nothing you have said, blockchain usage included, comes close to getting there.
  - Nuzzerino 9y ago