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It's degraded so much that I have to wonder if it's just optimizing for a different set of users. If you do a natural language query for celebrity news, it wor

It's degraded so much that I have to wonder if it's just optimizing for a different set of users. If you do a natural language query for celebrity news, it works really well now.

snaky 7y ago
Indeed. That's unfortunate, but there's no place for (free) services aimed at power users in the Internet.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  The logical end of this is where every query returns one of about five most popular pages. But then, why do you need a search engine?
skinnymuch 7y ago
Really for anyone going deeper it isn’t good. I know someone who works on patterns amongst celebs. Basically celeb news, but geekier. They have complained similarly about not being able to drill down for specific words. They already know the general celeb news so that doesn’t help.
dredmorbius 7y ago
In 1999, Google Web Search optimised for ~100 million users. In 2019, Google Web Search optimised for ~10 billion users. Expanding self-selected elite groups rarely sustains intelligence and skill levels. This isn't a swipe at general intelligence, it's just a flat fact of mass media, one that's been widely recognised (though often lamented on a moral basis) for well over a century. I've labled this "the tyranny of the minimum viable user". The other factor is that manipulating the medium has become increasingly attractive. That's not just old-school SEO (black or white), but propaganda, psyops, and similar activities. Google are very much part of this battleground, and seem to have taken considerable time coming up to speed with even grasping this. I suspect they're now aware, if not sufficiently competent. A friend, Woozle, has described this as a fundamental epistemic paradox as systems grow -- what was previously useful for a few becomes increasingly attractive to manipulators. Though Shoshana Zuboff's Three Laws predate their observations by about 30 years.

It's degraded so much that I have to wonder if it's just optimizing for a different set of users. If you do a natural language query for celebrity news, it works really well now.

snaky 7y ago

Indeed. That's unfortunate, but there's no place for (free) services aimed at power users in the Internet.

perl4ever 7y ago
The logical end of this is where every query returns one of about five most popular pages. But then, why do you need a search engine?

skinnymuch 7y ago

Really for anyone going deeper it isn’t good. I know someone who works on patterns amongst celebs. Basically celeb news, but geekier. They have complained similarly about not being able to drill down for specific words. They already know the general celeb news so that doesn’t help.

dredmorbius 7y ago

In 1999, Google Web Search optimised for ~100 million users. In 2019, Google Web Search optimised for ~10 billion users. Expanding self-selected elite groups rarely sustains intelligence and skill levels. This isn't a swipe at general intelligence, it's just a flat fact of mass media, one that's been widely recognised (though often lamented on a moral basis) for well over a century. I've labled this "the tyranny of the minimum viable user". The other factor is that manipulating the medium has become increasingly attractive. That's not just old-school SEO (black or white), but propaganda, psyops, and similar activities. Google are very much part of this battleground, and seem to have taken considerable time coming up to speed with even grasping this. I suspect they're now aware, if not sufficiently competent. A friend, Woozle, has described this as a fundamental epistemic paradox as systems grow -- what was previously useful for a few becomes increasingly attractive to manipulators. Though Shoshana Zuboff's Three Laws predate their observations by about 30 years.