3 ms·

this is the market working as intended. search is overridden with advertising, corporate messaging, politics and other moneyed interests. in contrast, users ar

this is the market working as intended. search is overridden with advertising, corporate messaging, politics and other moneyed interests. in contrast, users are looking for authentic content and information. those two things are increasingly misaligned. mozilla is experimenting with a new way for users to find what they want, rather than deferring to google et al. to deliver subpar user experiences. it may work, it may not, but i’m glad they are trying. (edit: i probably won’t try it any time soon, due to the privacy concerns voiced here and elsewhere. hopefully mozilla addresses those with a v.2 release and maybe i will try it then)

kodablah 8y ago
> this is the market working as intended Is it? I would love for a transparent market-driven motivation to be presented. But in its absence, we can only guess. > mozilla is experimenting with a new way for users to find what they want Why? Because they don't like the existing ways? Because they believe it fits their mission? Because there is money on the line? My TV vendor also experiments with new ways to host apps and use the internet too. > it may work, it may not, but i’m glad they are trying I personally am not glad they are trying. In fact, these trials help solidify my beliefs in the Mozilla's ideals regarding the role of a browser and can potentially alienate me or at the least prevent them from maintaining an air of righteousness in my eyes.
- clairity 8y ago
  you seem disillusioned by mozilla's actions. i can't help with that, other than to say that based on past actions, i believe mozilla will course-correct if necessary here. i'm not defending this new "advance" experiment/feature (i'm reserving judgement until i know more about it). i'm only expressing appreciation for them trying to address a user pain point (that search is crappy), while also responding to the general question "why?" posited by the GP post.
GraemeL 8y ago
Nothing on the Laserlike website indicates how they plan to make money from their service, but I wouldn't bet on it not being overridden with advertising, corporate messaging, politics and other moneyed interests.
baq 8y ago
i'll bite just a bit: you're concerned with sending your browser history to a third party but i assume are happy to send your search requests, hence search history, to a third party? i kinda understand the want to minimize the amount of third parties that know anything at all but otherwise don't see much of a difference in principal and history tells us that the search history may actually be worse.
- Karunamon 8y ago
  The critical difference being that a search engine of any usefulness requires transmitting a search request to that third party. Pocket's recommendation feature does not require any such transmission, so it's definitely possible to work around.
- clairity 8y ago
  yes, search history is juicy personal data. i'm willing to trust duckduckgo with that info for now. laserlike doesn't have a track record yet, so it's on the wait-and-see list. if anyone's made an affordable personal search appliance yet, let me know. =)

kodablah 8y ago

> this is the market working as intended Is it? I would love for a transparent market-driven motivation to be presented. But in its absence, we can only guess. > mozilla is experimenting with a new way for users to find what they want Why? Because they don't like the existing ways? Because they believe it fits their mission? Because there is money on the line? My TV vendor also experiments with new ways to host apps and use the internet too. > it may work, it may not, but i’m glad they are trying I personally am not glad they are trying. In fact, these trials help solidify my beliefs in the Mozilla's ideals regarding the role of a browser and can potentially alienate me or at the least prevent them from maintaining an air of righteousness in my eyes.

clairity 8y ago
you seem disillusioned by mozilla's actions. i can't help with that, other than to say that based on past actions, i believe mozilla will course-correct if necessary here. i'm not defending this new "advance" experiment/feature (i'm reserving judgement until i know more about it). i'm only expressing appreciation for them trying to address a user pain point (that search is crappy), while also responding to the general question "why?" posited by the GP post.

GraemeL 8y ago

Nothing on the Laserlike website indicates how they plan to make money from their service, but I wouldn't bet on it not being overridden with advertising, corporate messaging, politics and other moneyed interests.

baq 8y ago

i'll bite just a bit: you're concerned with sending your browser history to a third party but i assume are happy to send your search requests, hence search history, to a third party? i kinda understand the want to minimize the amount of third parties that know anything at all but otherwise don't see much of a difference in principal and history tells us that the search history may actually be worse.

Karunamon 8y ago
The critical difference being that a search engine of any usefulness requires transmitting a search request to that third party. Pocket's recommendation feature does not require any such transmission, so it's definitely possible to work around.
clairity 8y ago
yes, search history is juicy personal data. i'm willing to trust duckduckgo with that info for now. laserlike doesn't have a track record yet, so it's on the wait-and-see list. if anyone's made an affordable personal search appliance yet, let me know. =)