12 ms·

So a common trope in the startup world is the difference between a feature and a company, the idea being that lots of features are masquerading as companies. Th

by cletus 7y ago

So a common trope in the startup world is the difference between a feature and a company, the idea being that lots of features are masquerading as companies. This inevitably leads to them being shocked--SHOCKED--when some bigger player adds that feature, eating their lunch. I feel the same way about a lot of outbound sites on Google. There are a bunch of things I just don't want to go to another site for. Off the top of my head: - Exchange rates. Although this one I find infuriating because Google doesn't know how to correctly round off exchange rates (as in, there's a standard). This manifests as, say, showing 2 decimal places for AUD/USD when they should be showing 4. - Calculator - Mortgage calculator - Song lyrics That sort of thing. If you go to any sites that provide these sorts of things they're typically "scummy". Lots of ads, lots of Javascript, lots of dark patterns to make you load more page views (eg a mortgage calculator that'll mysteriously take 3 steps/page loads to calculate). I'm glad these are in search results, typically in significantly better versions. And I don't think anyone who runs a site built around a basic formula for interest calculations has any right to complain about it. Of course this will be painted as "where does it end?" but not every surface is a slippery slope. Just look at the likes of Yelp who complains about Google "stealing" their content. Well, Yelp is about one of the scummiest businesses out there. So I won't feel sorry for them, not now, not ever. The one weird case here is AMP. Like I get Google's motivations here. Many companies develop terrible mobile sites that run badly or not at all and AMP IS much faster, generally speaking. Yet still it seems so heavyhanded with seemingly no opt out (on the consumer or publisher side). I don't really understand why Google wants to die on this particular hill.

puranjay 7y ago
I understand your stand, but what Google did with its featured snippets is essentially a form of bait and switch. It encouraged entrepreneurs and creators to create content that could answer specific queries with the promise that Google will drive traffic to their sites. Now Google is using the same content and depriving them of the traffic. That's pretty scummy in my opinion.
- jasode 7y ago
  >Now Google is using the same content and depriving them of the traffic. I found some instructions[1] that says a website can opt out of Google's Featured Snippets with special HTML code: <meta name=”googlebot” content=”nosnippet”> Are there any cases of websites deliberately opting out of snippets and therefore seeing their referral links (and ad revenue) increase? [1] https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/03/27/google-featured-snippets-guide-2019/ https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/03/27/google-featured-sni...
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    Thus allowing your competitor to take your place
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    wanna take bets google then deranks you heavily?
  - pwinnski 7y ago
    It's hard for me to shake the vague feeling that this feels like someone setting up on the sidewalk in front of your property and saying hey, you could have done X, Y, or Z, to stop me from being here. And you say, I did do X. And they say, oh, X was two years ago. Y was last year. Now you have to do Z. Until next year when it'll be AA. And weirdly, AA is the exact opposite of X, because what you thought would take care of things two years ago now penalizes you. It's not a perfect analogy, because obviously people still hope for referrals from Google. But this idea that because something is published somewhere, it's okay, reminds me of Arthur Dent finding out that the notification about demolishing his house was in the third-subbasement of a local government building in a file cabinet marked "Beware of the Leopard." From rough memory; please forgive if I mis-remembered.
    - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
      Do I get to bill google for all extra traffic I have to send by appending that to the body of my websites in order to prevent them from stealing my intellectual property? Also going forward you have to add this to your site or I will steal anything that isn't nailed down. <meta name=”fuzzz4lyfe” content=”notheft”>
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
If I want exchange rates I type xe.com in the address bar
- padobson 7y ago
  And I like Dave Ramsey's mortgage calculator: https://www.daveramsey.com/mortgage-calculator https://www.daveramsey.com/mortgage-calculator Or retirement calculator: https://www.daveramsey.com/smartvestor/investment-calculator https://www.daveramsey.com/smartvestor/investment-calculator
- yeezul 7y ago
  This example proves his point exactly. I'd rather just type CAD to USD.. or BTC to USD, or any other combination in my address bar than type xe.com, load a bunch of libraries, including Facebook connect. Ghostly reports 6 trackers blocked. Furthermore, it took 3.45 seconds to load xe.com in Incognito, while google only took 1.1
- concert-gilled 7y ago
  I don't know about Google but DuckDuckGo pulls conversions from Xe. It is much quicker to duck the conversion than to find it after hitting Xe's homepage.
- rchaud 7y ago
  For an increasing proportion of users, the "address bar" is now the "Google search" bar. You may have discovered xe.com when the distinction was much more obvious, but as time went on the browser UI underwent changes, that will change as well. New versions of Chromium will begin hiding the full URL entirely, probably so that more and more marketing/targeting related UTM parameters can be jammed in without the user ever even knowing.
  - t0ughcritic 7y ago
    No it’s so you don’t remember it or care for urls and just search everything making google the only source of info online. Pay to play baby if you want to show up
hammock 7y ago
>The one weird case here is AMP. If you have been to a local news site recently, you might agree that they are similarly "scummy," overrun with banners, popups and native ads.
- inetknght 7y ago
  Try a local news site with Firefox's Reader Mode. If it's still garbage then the local news site isn't worth any more time whatsoever. Keep a running mental list of what sites not to click on. They're typically in the top 1-10 links of search results.
  - baroffoos 7y ago
    I wish I could hit reader mode before the page loads so my phone doesn't melt in the time it takes for the page to finish loading its 10000 js frameworks.
    - inetknght 7y ago
      If you're following a link, then copy the link and paste it into the URL bar. Before you hit enter, prepend with `about:reader?url=`.
bduerst 7y ago
>with seemingly no opt out (on the consumer or publisher side) I though AMP was opt-in for publishers? As in you have to write the front-end spec and pick a CDN to cache with.
- ChrisAntaki 7y ago
  Yep, it's opt in for publishers. For users, the only way to opt out currently is to view in desktop mode.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    Users can use encrypted.google.com to search on mobile, but yeah, there should be a search setting for them.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      I've heard of this strategy before, but it has never worked for me. Encrypted.google.com just redirects to google.com, and I still get AMP. I now use https://github.com/bentasker/RemoveAMP https://github.com/bentasker/RemoveAMP, but that's only possible because I'm lucky enough to have a Jailbroken iPhone. :/
      - skinnymuch 7y ago
        Are you using a userscript app or extension for jailbroken iOS devices?
        Wowfunhappy 7y ago
        I'm using software that allows me to load userscripts in Mobile Safari on my iPhone. I guess you'd call it an "extension"? It feels weird to use that term, as it implies (to me) that there's some sort of extension framework in place. There isn't, it's just code injection.
        7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
criddell 7y ago
A bunch of those things aren't really searches though, are they? I do queries like "2 tbsp in tsp" or "45 * 22" or "$25 CDN in USD" all the time and I don't think of them as a search. Same goes for my Echo. I ask it all the time for today's weather or what time the Texas Rangers are playing or who is the starting pitcher for the Giants tonight. None of that feels like a search.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  Well, simple math isn't, but think about your currency conversion, your weather lookup, or your sports schedule. Where did Google get the data for those things? Does whoever provided that data have expenses, and did Google compensate them in any way for those expenses or did Google lift the data for free with GoogleBot?
  - richardwhiuk 7y ago
    How did that site get the sports schedule? Did they just copy it from somewhere else?
    - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      And that's part of the question: If Google's getting all it's data from first party sources, say, scraping it from the team's website, it may not have harmed anyone there. But if it's scraping it from a site which aggregated and normalized the information into an easily parse-able format (hence, providing value, of which Google took advantage), then they must be compensated for it.
      - criddell 7y ago
        Presumably the site being scraped is getting some value from being included in Google's index. If they aren't, they can always opt out.
        dmitriid 7y ago
SpaceManNabs 7y ago
Don't know about everything else, but Genius is unparalleled for lyrics to rap and hip hop. I honestly don't see Google having clout to get Zack Fox to do some commentary; Tidal and spotify pretty much cornered that.
- skyyler 7y ago
  Genius is a good resource for lyrics of all genres now. They used to be called RapGenius, if you remember :-)
Causality1 7y ago
For pop-culture things or very simple queries Google will do, but for everything else I rely on Wolfram Alpha.
jwilliams 7y ago
> Although this one I find infuriating because Google doesn't know how to correctly round off exchange rates I generally search for "1000 USD in AUD" as a workaround.
- concert-gilled 7y ago
  Both cases showed 2 decimal places for me.
  - ummonk 7y ago
    You get 5 decimal places if you divide by 1000...
    - concert-gilled 7y ago
      Thanks, I missed that. I was just looking at the number of decimal places. Is that method accurate? (1000 * incorrectly_rounded) / 1000 == incorrectly_rounded
      - ummonk 7y ago
        It's not incorrectly rounded. It's correctly rounded to two decimal places in either case. Two decimal places just isn't enough digits when you give it 1 USD, so you have to give it 1000 USD.
whatshisface 7y ago
>the difference between a feature and a company If the right investments were made, every software company's product could be a feature of Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Windows could be a feature of Intel CPUs.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  Microsoft tried that with Internet Explorer and another time with Bing, it didn't work out so well.
  - ericflo 7y ago
    Apple's taking another crack at it, and so far nothing looks likely to stop them.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
Song lyrics really ought be from a rights holders site and not j random site with questionable translations - I have seen some lyrics sites that totally mangle the meaning of basic English words.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  They "ought" to be, but I fear that regulation censoring these low quality sites would be worse for society in the long run. Monopolization of cultural information is antisocial.
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
The great thing about the calculator and specific DSLs like the exchange conversion is that it's trivial to parse. The helpfulness of the "more than just a search index" degrades rapidly into siphoning people to top 50 sites, like scraping metadata from IMDB. I'd much rather they gave me the ability to restrict the information they show me as most of it is distracting to me and reduces my productivity. If I want to look up an actor I'll just add 'IMDB' to the end and get a much better experience on the site itself than google could ever offer in their search page.
nullwasamistake 7y ago
It's not the same as copying the "feature", in many cases Google straight up takes your content and puts it on their homepage. The difference between a product and a feature is nothing. Every app made is just a bunch of features put together. AWS S3 is a great example, it's just like Dropbox for nerds. A lyrics website recently put fake lyrics on their site to prove Google was copying, and sure enough the fake lyrics showed up a couple weeks later. Google isn't just taking content from "evil" companies like Yelp, they're doing it to everybody. Job search, shopping, song lyrics, news, and who knows what else, is all being somewhat blatantly lifted. And nobody can stop it because blocking Google is a death knell to any site
- n3k5 7y ago
  > The difference between a product and a feature is nothing. Granted, but the comment you replied to was about the difference between a feature and a company.
notafraudster 7y ago
I agree here. For the median search I make, having to click on a website is a failure. If I search "John McCain age at death", why would I click on a website? This seems trivial, but it is frustrating for even more technical issues. If I search "Non-standard evaluation in left-hand side of mutate command R", it's a bit weird that I'm expected to click the first StackExchange rather than getting a canonical answer excerpted. Ditto when I search "Analytic standard error of a regularized regression". These are basically true/false questions, and it's a win for Google if they give me the answer. I do emphathize with the companies being scooped by Google, and so I have concern that they are viable economically and that Google compensates them for getting the info from them. But in the mean time, it's a success for me when my search gives me the answer immediately instead of two or three rounds of indirection.
- n3k5 7y ago
  > If I search "Non-standard evaluation in left-hand side of mutate command R", it's a bit weird that I'm expected to click the first StackExchange rather than getting a canonical answer excerpted. Are you saying that there's no excerpt at all above the search results, when you expected one; or that there is an excerpt, but it's not from the most appropriate/relevant source? It's annoying when there's a page that has all the information you might need, but to find it, you first have to scroll past a bunch of Stack Overflow posts that are more suitable for dilettantes who prioritise trying a quick fix over learning best practices. But when you do make the effort to find the most promising link and your browser allows the search engine to record your choice, you at least get a vote regarding how the ranking should be adjusted. When users just look at the results but don't interact with them any further, that feedback vanishes. A win for Google isn't necessarily a win for Google users.
- kaybe 7y ago
  Maybe Wikipedia could do with a fact-pulling tool that answers small questions like this?
noobermin 7y ago
As if Google is not the scummiest service out there. Just because it hides its tracking and doesn't quite use dark patterns but manipulates much the same doesn't mean it isn't any better.
Springtime 7y ago
> Exchange rates I set up custom search keywords in every browser I use for this, among many other custom searches. In that particular case I query xe.com from an address bar search (not affiliated with them I've just always used the site) as xe <amount> for my most common currency conversion and others like xeyen for Japanese rates, xegbp for British Pound, etc. Takes me right to the page. Even for various Google services I set them up to save unnecessary clicks.
throwaway_law 7y ago
>If you go to any sites that provide these sorts of things they're typically "scummy". Lots of ads, lots of Javascript, lots of dark patterns to make you load more page views Exactly why go to those sites when you can get the same experience without leaving Google? And its not like Google isn't serving the ads on both Google and those "scummy" websites anyway, and no one is going to out dark pattern Google.
acollins1331 7y ago
The automatic calculator and translator is what me switch back from DDG a few weeks ago.
hawski 7y ago
It's interesting how one of the best sources of information are sites providing the information as a side dish to their core business. For example I was searching for a lease termination letter template. There are sites dedicated to documents, letters, forms and templates. Many of them are pretty spammy or messy. Then I found a page of a real estate portal. They had just what I needed, without superfluous ads with nice UX. It's in their interest to help people to do this, because then they will probably search for a next apartment. They, of course, are fast to offer additional services on top like searching for the move services. But nevertheless, providing this service is something on edge what they are doing - a marketplace for real estate. Only then they will get some money, so the side experience should be as smooth and painless as possible. Another example is a tax/salary calculator on a job board. Or... most what Google is doing to some extent, but with different trade-offs. I know it's nothing new, but it was interesting for me to notice it recently so directly.
tkjef 7y ago
check out the mortgage calculator i made: https://www.mortgagecalculator.io/ https://www.mortgagecalculator.io/ no dark patterns, loads quickly, uses fathom for analytics so no tracking. There are affiliate links to LendingTree, but they're just text links and i tried to be non-obtrusive to the ux. also, have an android app that just hit 5,000 installs since being launched in mid-April: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.mortgagecalculator.www https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.mortgagecal... currently ranking #3 for 'mortgage calculator' on google play. pretty proud of that! beating out Zillow and Quicken's mortgage calculators.
buboard 7y ago
So it's a case where the webmasters get greedy, and google steals their food, and everyone cheers for google. I 'm starting to think we need search engines to go back to their beginnings, when they were crawling the web , not creating or replacing the web. If they are only pointing to the websites, but rank them by speed, then webmasters would compete who will answer the question faster.

by cletus 7y ago

puranjay 7y ago

I understand your stand, but what Google did with its featured snippets is essentially a form of bait and switch. It encouraged entrepreneurs and creators to create content that could answer specific queries with the promise that Google will drive traffic to their sites. Now Google is using the same content and depriving them of the traffic. That's pretty scummy in my opinion.

jasode 7y ago
>Now Google is using the same content and depriving them of the traffic. I found some instructions[1] that says a website can opt out of Google's Featured Snippets with special HTML code: <meta name=”googlebot” content=”nosnippet”> Are there any cases of websites deliberately opting out of snippets and therefore seeing their referral links (and ad revenue) increase? [1] https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/03/27/google-featured-snippets-guide-2019/ https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/03/27/google-featured-sni...
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Thus allowing your competitor to take your place
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  wanna take bets google then deranks you heavily?
- pwinnski 7y ago
  It's hard for me to shake the vague feeling that this feels like someone setting up on the sidewalk in front of your property and saying hey, you could have done X, Y, or Z, to stop me from being here. And you say, I did do X. And they say, oh, X was two years ago. Y was last year. Now you have to do Z. Until next year when it'll be AA. And weirdly, AA is the exact opposite of X, because what you thought would take care of things two years ago now penalizes you. It's not a perfect analogy, because obviously people still hope for referrals from Google. But this idea that because something is published somewhere, it's okay, reminds me of Arthur Dent finding out that the notification about demolishing his house was in the third-subbasement of a local government building in a file cabinet marked "Beware of the Leopard." From rough memory; please forgive if I mis-remembered.
  - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
    Do I get to bill google for all extra traffic I have to send by appending that to the body of my websites in order to prevent them from stealing my intellectual property? Also going forward you have to add this to your site or I will steal anything that isn't nailed down. <meta name=”fuzzz4lyfe” content=”notheft”>

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

If I want exchange rates I type xe.com in the address bar

padobson 7y ago
And I like Dave Ramsey's mortgage calculator: https://www.daveramsey.com/mortgage-calculator https://www.daveramsey.com/mortgage-calculator Or retirement calculator: https://www.daveramsey.com/smartvestor/investment-calculator https://www.daveramsey.com/smartvestor/investment-calculator
yeezul 7y ago
This example proves his point exactly. I'd rather just type CAD to USD.. or BTC to USD, or any other combination in my address bar than type xe.com, load a bunch of libraries, including Facebook connect. Ghostly reports 6 trackers blocked. Furthermore, it took 3.45 seconds to load xe.com in Incognito, while google only took 1.1
concert-gilled 7y ago
I don't know about Google but DuckDuckGo pulls conversions from Xe. It is much quicker to duck the conversion than to find it after hitting Xe's homepage.
rchaud 7y ago
For an increasing proportion of users, the "address bar" is now the "Google search" bar. You may have discovered xe.com when the distinction was much more obvious, but as time went on the browser UI underwent changes, that will change as well. New versions of Chromium will begin hiding the full URL entirely, probably so that more and more marketing/targeting related UTM parameters can be jammed in without the user ever even knowing.
- t0ughcritic 7y ago
  No it’s so you don’t remember it or care for urls and just search everything making google the only source of info online. Pay to play baby if you want to show up

hammock 7y ago

>The one weird case here is AMP. If you have been to a local news site recently, you might agree that they are similarly "scummy," overrun with banners, popups and native ads.

inetknght 7y ago
Try a local news site with Firefox's Reader Mode. If it's still garbage then the local news site isn't worth any more time whatsoever. Keep a running mental list of what sites not to click on. They're typically in the top 1-10 links of search results.
- baroffoos 7y ago
  I wish I could hit reader mode before the page loads so my phone doesn't melt in the time it takes for the page to finish loading its 10000 js frameworks.
  - inetknght 7y ago
    If you're following a link, then copy the link and paste it into the URL bar. Before you hit enter, prepend with `about:reader?url=`.

bduerst 7y ago

>with seemingly no opt out (on the consumer or publisher side) I though AMP was opt-in for publishers? As in you have to write the front-end spec and pick a CDN to cache with.

ChrisAntaki 7y ago
Yep, it's opt in for publishers. For users, the only way to opt out currently is to view in desktop mode.
- bduerst 7y ago
  Users can use encrypted.google.com to search on mobile, but yeah, there should be a search setting for them.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    I've heard of this strategy before, but it has never worked for me. Encrypted.google.com just redirects to google.com, and I still get AMP. I now use https://github.com/bentasker/RemoveAMP https://github.com/bentasker/RemoveAMP, but that's only possible because I'm lucky enough to have a Jailbroken iPhone. :/
    - skinnymuch 7y ago
      Are you using a userscript app or extension for jailbroken iOS devices?
      - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
        I'm using software that allows me to load userscripts in Mobile Safari on my iPhone. I guess you'd call it an "extension"? It feels weird to use that term, as it implies (to me) that there's some sort of extension framework in place. There isn't, it's just code injection.
        7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

criddell 7y ago

A bunch of those things aren't really searches though, are they? I do queries like "2 tbsp in tsp" or "45 * 22" or "$25 CDN in USD" all the time and I don't think of them as a search. Same goes for my Echo. I ask it all the time for today's weather or what time the Texas Rangers are playing or who is the starting pitcher for the Giants tonight. None of that feels like a search.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
Well, simple math isn't, but think about your currency conversion, your weather lookup, or your sports schedule. Where did Google get the data for those things? Does whoever provided that data have expenses, and did Google compensate them in any way for those expenses or did Google lift the data for free with GoogleBot?
- richardwhiuk 7y ago
  How did that site get the sports schedule? Did they just copy it from somewhere else?
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    And that's part of the question: If Google's getting all it's data from first party sources, say, scraping it from the team's website, it may not have harmed anyone there. But if it's scraping it from a site which aggregated and normalized the information into an easily parse-able format (hence, providing value, of which Google took advantage), then they must be compensated for it.
    - criddell 7y ago
      Presumably the site being scraped is getting some value from being included in Google's index. If they aren't, they can always opt out.
      - dmitriid 7y ago

SpaceManNabs 7y ago

Don't know about everything else, but Genius is unparalleled for lyrics to rap and hip hop. I honestly don't see Google having clout to get Zack Fox to do some commentary; Tidal and spotify pretty much cornered that.

skyyler 7y ago
Genius is a good resource for lyrics of all genres now. They used to be called RapGenius, if you remember :-)

Causality1 7y ago

For pop-culture things or very simple queries Google will do, but for everything else I rely on Wolfram Alpha.

jwilliams 7y ago

> Although this one I find infuriating because Google doesn't know how to correctly round off exchange rates I generally search for "1000 USD in AUD" as a workaround.

concert-gilled 7y ago
Both cases showed 2 decimal places for me.
- ummonk 7y ago
  You get 5 decimal places if you divide by 1000...
  - concert-gilled 7y ago
    Thanks, I missed that. I was just looking at the number of decimal places. Is that method accurate? (1000 * incorrectly_rounded) / 1000 == incorrectly_rounded
    - ummonk 7y ago
      It's not incorrectly rounded. It's correctly rounded to two decimal places in either case. Two decimal places just isn't enough digits when you give it 1 USD, so you have to give it 1000 USD.

whatshisface 7y ago

>the difference between a feature and a company If the right investments were made, every software company's product could be a feature of Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Windows could be a feature of Intel CPUs.

wongarsu 7y ago
Microsoft tried that with Internet Explorer and another time with Bing, it didn't work out so well.
- ericflo 7y ago
  Apple's taking another crack at it, and so far nothing looks likely to stop them.

C1sc0cat 7y ago

Song lyrics really ought be from a rights holders site and not j random site with questionable translations - I have seen some lyrics sites that totally mangle the meaning of basic English words.

cwkoss 7y ago
They "ought" to be, but I fear that regulation censoring these low quality sites would be worse for society in the long run. Monopolization of cultural information is antisocial.

SomeOldThrow 7y ago

The great thing about the calculator and specific DSLs like the exchange conversion is that it's trivial to parse. The helpfulness of the "more than just a search index" degrades rapidly into siphoning people to top 50 sites, like scraping metadata from IMDB. I'd much rather they gave me the ability to restrict the information they show me as most of it is distracting to me and reduces my productivity. If I want to look up an actor I'll just add 'IMDB' to the end and get a much better experience on the site itself than google could ever offer in their search page.

nullwasamistake 7y ago

It's not the same as copying the "feature", in many cases Google straight up takes your content and puts it on their homepage. The difference between a product and a feature is nothing. Every app made is just a bunch of features put together. AWS S3 is a great example, it's just like Dropbox for nerds. A lyrics website recently put fake lyrics on their site to prove Google was copying, and sure enough the fake lyrics showed up a couple weeks later. Google isn't just taking content from "evil" companies like Yelp, they're doing it to everybody. Job search, shopping, song lyrics, news, and who knows what else, is all being somewhat blatantly lifted. And nobody can stop it because blocking Google is a death knell to any site

n3k5 7y ago
> The difference between a product and a feature is nothing. Granted, but the comment you replied to was about the difference between a feature and a company.

notafraudster 7y ago

I agree here. For the median search I make, having to click on a website is a failure. If I search "John McCain age at death", why would I click on a website? This seems trivial, but it is frustrating for even more technical issues. If I search "Non-standard evaluation in left-hand side of mutate command R", it's a bit weird that I'm expected to click the first StackExchange rather than getting a canonical answer excerpted. Ditto when I search "Analytic standard error of a regularized regression". These are basically true/false questions, and it's a win for Google if they give me the answer. I do emphathize with the companies being scooped by Google, and so I have concern that they are viable economically and that Google compensates them for getting the info from them. But in the mean time, it's a success for me when my search gives me the answer immediately instead of two or three rounds of indirection.

n3k5 7y ago
> If I search "Non-standard evaluation in left-hand side of mutate command R", it's a bit weird that I'm expected to click the first StackExchange rather than getting a canonical answer excerpted. Are you saying that there's no excerpt at all above the search results, when you expected one; or that there is an excerpt, but it's not from the most appropriate/relevant source? It's annoying when there's a page that has all the information you might need, but to find it, you first have to scroll past a bunch of Stack Overflow posts that are more suitable for dilettantes who prioritise trying a quick fix over learning best practices. But when you do make the effort to find the most promising link and your browser allows the search engine to record your choice, you at least get a vote regarding how the ranking should be adjusted. When users just look at the results but don't interact with them any further, that feedback vanishes. A win for Google isn't necessarily a win for Google users.
kaybe 7y ago
Maybe Wikipedia could do with a fact-pulling tool that answers small questions like this?

noobermin 7y ago

As if Google is not the scummiest service out there. Just because it hides its tracking and doesn't quite use dark patterns but manipulates much the same doesn't mean it isn't any better.

Springtime 7y ago

> Exchange rates I set up custom search keywords in every browser I use for this, among many other custom searches. In that particular case I query xe.com from an address bar search (not affiliated with them I've just always used the site) as xe <amount> for my most common currency conversion and others like xeyen for Japanese rates, xegbp for British Pound, etc. Takes me right to the page. Even for various Google services I set them up to save unnecessary clicks.

throwaway_law 7y ago

>If you go to any sites that provide these sorts of things they're typically "scummy". Lots of ads, lots of Javascript, lots of dark patterns to make you load more page views Exactly why go to those sites when you can get the same experience without leaving Google? And its not like Google isn't serving the ads on both Google and those "scummy" websites anyway, and no one is going to out dark pattern Google.

acollins1331 7y ago

The automatic calculator and translator is what me switch back from DDG a few weeks ago.

hawski 7y ago

It's interesting how one of the best sources of information are sites providing the information as a side dish to their core business. For example I was searching for a lease termination letter template. There are sites dedicated to documents, letters, forms and templates. Many of them are pretty spammy or messy. Then I found a page of a real estate portal. They had just what I needed, without superfluous ads with nice UX. It's in their interest to help people to do this, because then they will probably search for a next apartment. They, of course, are fast to offer additional services on top like searching for the move services. But nevertheless, providing this service is something on edge what they are doing - a marketplace for real estate. Only then they will get some money, so the side experience should be as smooth and painless as possible. Another example is a tax/salary calculator on a job board. Or... most what Google is doing to some extent, but with different trade-offs. I know it's nothing new, but it was interesting for me to notice it recently so directly.

tkjef 7y ago

check out the mortgage calculator i made: https://www.mortgagecalculator.io/ https://www.mortgagecalculator.io/ no dark patterns, loads quickly, uses fathom for analytics so no tracking. There are affiliate links to LendingTree, but they're just text links and i tried to be non-obtrusive to the ux. also, have an android app that just hit 5,000 installs since being launched in mid-April: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.mortgagecalculator.www https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.mortgagecal... currently ranking #3 for 'mortgage calculator' on google play. pretty proud of that! beating out Zillow and Quicken's mortgage calculators.

buboard 7y ago

So it's a case where the webmasters get greedy, and google steals their food, and everyone cheers for google. I 'm starting to think we need search engines to go back to their beginnings, when they were crawling the web , not creating or replacing the web. If they are only pointing to the websites, but rank them by speed, then webmasters would compete who will answer the question faster.