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I would point out that people made this argument back in 2005, 2010, 2015, and now 2019 and all that's happened is is the argument has evolved from "you can use

I would point out that people made this argument back in 2005, 2010, 2015, and now 2019 and all that's happened is is the argument has evolved from "you can use X other search engines!" to "well even if they have a monopolistic position, someone else will make one eventually".

Scarblac 7y ago
There is Duck Duck Go. Unfortunately, in my experience its results are still worse than Google's.
- jstarfish 7y ago
  I agree, as much as I want to support it it is unusably bad. The internet is a much bigger place than it was in the 90s when we last had multiple competing search engines (and even manually-curated directories!). It is much harder to effectively index "all the things" than it was back then. Google managed to get ahead of that scale curve. I think any future competitor will have to be an extension of Dogpile or Jeeves, where you aggregate the results of individual engines and rank results based on relevance + domain specialty or credibility of each engine/indexer, like a revamped EBSCO or VirusTotal.
  - inciampati 7y ago
    I find google unusably bad. It changes results based on where I am and on the time of day. It's unstable. It gives me what it thinks I want, not what I ask for. In contrast ddg is always giving the same result, changing only with the addition of new data to the web over time. I'm curious what you find unusable about ddg in contrast? For several years I have never had a situation where dropping into Google gave me the result I thought I could find. If ddg isn't finding it, it doesn't exist. Could we be using search differently?
    - Scarblac 7y ago
      The thing is that for me, Google is often right when it gives me what it thinks I want, and Duck Duck Go gives pages of things I don't. For many easy queries (where I really know where the thing I'm looking for is, but it's easier to just do a quick search and click the result) both are fine. But when I have an obscure problem and don't quite know what the right search terms would be, Google often guesses right and DDG doesn't try.
theboywho 7y ago
The question is whether or not Google results are relevant to your search query. There are many alternatives to Google, you can't claim that Google results are not relevant to what you are looking for because Google "interferes" with them and at the same time claim they are so good no alternative is capable of competing.
- zepto 7y ago
  Yes, you can easily claim that the interference introduces bias for the vast majority of people doing basic searches, even while google is indispensable for the smaller percentage of more complex searches. There is no contradiction.

Scarblac 7y ago

There is Duck Duck Go. Unfortunately, in my experience its results are still worse than Google's.

jstarfish 7y ago
I agree, as much as I want to support it it is unusably bad. The internet is a much bigger place than it was in the 90s when we last had multiple competing search engines (and even manually-curated directories!). It is much harder to effectively index "all the things" than it was back then. Google managed to get ahead of that scale curve. I think any future competitor will have to be an extension of Dogpile or Jeeves, where you aggregate the results of individual engines and rank results based on relevance + domain specialty or credibility of each engine/indexer, like a revamped EBSCO or VirusTotal.
- inciampati 7y ago
  I find google unusably bad. It changes results based on where I am and on the time of day. It's unstable. It gives me what it thinks I want, not what I ask for. In contrast ddg is always giving the same result, changing only with the addition of new data to the web over time. I'm curious what you find unusable about ddg in contrast? For several years I have never had a situation where dropping into Google gave me the result I thought I could find. If ddg isn't finding it, it doesn't exist. Could we be using search differently?
  - Scarblac 7y ago
    The thing is that for me, Google is often right when it gives me what it thinks I want, and Duck Duck Go gives pages of things I don't. For many easy queries (where I really know where the thing I'm looking for is, but it's easier to just do a quick search and click the result) both are fine. But when I have an obscure problem and don't quite know what the right search terms would be, Google often guesses right and DDG doesn't try.

theboywho 7y ago

The question is whether or not Google results are relevant to your search query. There are many alternatives to Google, you can't claim that Google results are not relevant to what you are looking for because Google "interferes" with them and at the same time claim they are so good no alternative is capable of competing.

zepto 7y ago
Yes, you can easily claim that the interference introduces bias for the vast majority of people doing basic searches, even while google is indispensable for the smaller percentage of more complex searches. There is no contradiction.