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"Search engines appear to be especially valuable: consumers surveyed said that they would have to be paid $17,500 to forgo their use for a year." So the title i
by Jun8 9y ago
"Search engines appear to be especially valuable: consumers surveyed said that they would have to be paid $17,500 to forgo their use for a year." So the title is using "Google" as a generic name for a search engine cf. Kleenex. Which is a pity because I really would like to know how much people would pay to stick with Google as opposed to another search engine, e.g. DDG. For me, this is next to nil!
- parthdesai 9y agoi dont think it's misleading. People say "Just google it" instead of just search it. How many people know of DDG?
- tomtimtall 9y agoThe person your replying to misunderstood it. I misunderstood it. The literal meaning of the title is not what it literally means. I think we should agree that it is misleading.
- solipsism 9y agoIt's certainly misleading, but only to this audience, which is full of people who have opinions about Google versus other search engines. It's not that misleading to the Economist's broader audience, which doesn't know of any reasons anyone would not use Google.
- dcow 9y agoYou don't think that's slightly patronizing?
- gregknicholson 9y agoI don't think of Google as primarily a search engine. It's a suite of services. Most of their services require an account in some way, and I don't want to be tied to such a massive company. Like most Google's services that you can use without an account, their search engine is pretty decent (although DuckDuckGo is my main search engine). Maps is decent too. But I wouldn't pay to use any of Google's services. There are adequate libre alternatives now.
- parthdesai 9y ago>I don't think of Google as primarily a search engine. It's a suite of services. Right, you don't. But you are also on HN, implying you are tech-literate. You know what my mom, Susie from accounting, Chad from marketing and Amy from sales think of Google as? Don't take my word for it, here just see what Oxford dictionary defines google [0] as. I don't get HN sometimes. People think everyone is as knowledgable or tech-literate as people on here. Still remember that famous comment in Show HN: Dropbox thread about why would one need it. [0]: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/google https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/google
- gregknicholson 9y agoYes, I accept that other people see this company differently. I didn't say and didn't mean to imply that other people do or should see things the same way as me.
- jgtrosh 9y agoI think the difference might be linguistic: “to Google” has the search meaning for practically everyone, “to use Google” much less so.
- solipsism 9y agoWhich is a pity because I really would like to know how much people would pay to stick with Google as opposed to another search engine, e.g. DDG The question makes no sense to me. Everyone (outside of a tiny tech savvy minority) already uses Google, and they have to be paid nothing.
- kirkules 9y agoI think the intent was to ask how much people would pay for access to Google searches, assuming they have other search options that they wouldn't have to pay for. Not to ask how much would Google have to pay them to stick with Google.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- space_fountain 9y agoDefinitely not nil for me. DDG still seems to struggle at looking up basic programing related information. Is that not the case for you?
- soperj 9y agoNot for me any more. If i don't find a result i want the first time, i just add a !so and then it searches only stackoverflow.
- bitL 9y agoDDG used to be much better half a year ago; recently they seem to have adopted "I know better than you what you want to search for" from Google and often even "" doesn't return anything useful until you start adding "-" to any terms that are out of whack. Friends at DDG, if you read this, please return back to what you had before, aping the leader with its warts is not going to make you more competitive, but definitely less useful.
- trophycase 9y agoUnfortunately, they are right most of the time that they know better. But it is sad that something gets ruined catering to people who can't properly formulate keywords.
- simias 9y agoI've been using DDG for a few years now and I have the reflex to immediately add "!g" after a query if I don't find what I'm looking for in the first screen of results. Nowadays I notice more and more that when DDG doesn't find what I'm looking for then google often doesn't either. I think the duck is pretty mature now, at least for my use cases. That being said I don't fool myself, DDG is free which means that if it ever becomes really mainstream it's going to turn "evil" at some point in order to monetize the users one way or an other. Let me pay for your bloody service, add a few gizmo premium features if you have to. I want to be the client, not the product.
- kristianc 9y ago
- aw3c2 9y agoDDG is almost as bad as cuil at least for German results. Endless spam and irrelevant things.
- Tepix 9y agoWorks for me. I only use other search engines in like 10% or searches.