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Do you think we’ll ever move away from search engines entirely? What’s stopping us from using alternative means of searching and what would these look like?
by mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
Do you think we’ll ever move away from search engines entirely? What’s stopping us from using alternative means of searching and what would these look like?
- ThirdFoundation 8y agoI don't have an answer, but I have trouble picturing a better option that's both egalitarian and actually gives the best search results. The closest thing I can think of almost feels regressive -- sites like HackerNews and Reddit. What I mean is asking a question there or searching for threads where other users have asked a similar question. Often the links provided in those threads are less likely to be provided by advertisers and actually just promoted by users. That's often where I find the best answers for things. But to access those threads I still use Google or DDG because the Reddit search function is terrible. Other options, like AOL Keywords (if you remember those) basically just directly link to paid providers. I guess it's possible that there is a fair and balanced web crawler, but to give true freedom and not guide the user to specific the best option still seems to be a search engine. Maybe the answer isn't alternative forms of searching but rather alternative ways to show the results? Right now they look like a ranking list. Maybe they could be displayed in a map or another form?