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No one can build a search engine as good as Google without the data flowing through it every day. That have so many click logs to train their models and see wha

No one can build a search engine as good as Google without the data flowing through it every day. That have so many click logs to train their models and see what works, there is just no way to compete. If all Google engineers left at the same time, Google would still probably end up dominant by hiring new folks to get things back up and running. No amount of human labor will be able to close that data gap.

judge2020 6y ago
The Google search engine didn't have anything to build off of when it was introduced since it was using an algorithm and not ML. You could create a search engine today without utilizing any click data outside of "what link did this user click on the result page and did they search for a similar query or try another link as their next action". In fact, this is already happening. DDG is building its own crawler (I often see the ddg user agent on my web properties) and they don't have any open "machine learning expert" positions.
- t-writescode 6y ago
  I believe DDG also uses Bing data.
- b3kart 6y ago
  Sure, but when Google have been starting out they didn’t have to compete with...Google (as it is today). While companies that would like to enter the market now have to. And Google has a massive competitive advantage: their data and their scale. Not saying that regulation will necessarily help, and it’s not Google’s fault that they’re so good, but it’s silly not to admit that it’s hard to enter the search market today. Now DDG is interesting. Their results are noticeably worse (YMMV). But they are using privacy as the selling point. I wonder if you can possibly have results as good as Google’s, or be as big and profitable as Google, while maintaining user’s privacy. I guess we’ll find out.
  - ridewinter 6y ago
    They said the same thing about Microsoft. Along came Google destroying them in an ancillary arena. Expect that trend to continue in the future.
    - b3kart 6y ago
      You're broadening the context. I am not saying Google as company is something you can't compete with. Many companies do so successfully in various markets. I am talking about search in particular. Which is why you bringing Microsoft in is convenient for my point. How's Microsoft's attempt to compete with Google search doing? And that's one of the few companies that can challenge Google in terms of resources.
      - ridewinter 6y ago
        Yes, broadening the context is my whole point. 20 years ago it was the OS, 10 years ago it was search, today it's social networks, tomorrow? The monopolies from each era struggle in the next. Let Google solve & dominate search while innovation moves on to the next big thing.
        Gibbon1 6y ago
        The history is antitrust rulings are what prevents monopolies of the past from dominating the next era. IBM was constrained by an antitrust ruling. Which gave Microsoft an opening. Microsoft itself was then subject to a similar action 20 years later. So it's been another 20 years since then, so the time is ripe to clip googles wings.
baddox 6y ago
That seems extremely short-sighted. There’s nothing stopping people from coming up with a better way to find what you’re looking for than Google’s search engine.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  What mechanism do you propose for keeping any one alternative frommsimply becomming the new abusive monopoly? Railroads begat AT&T begat IBM begat Microsoft begat Google begat Facebook begat Amazon. What some of us who've seen this rodeo a few times are beginning, slowly and dimly, to realise is that what we'd prefer is a healthy competitive marketplace within, sa, telecoms, chips, operating systems, publishing, search, retail, and the like. Simply crowning an endless succession of new storks as king of the frogs is losing its lustre. https://fablesofaesop.com/the-frogs-pick-a-king.html https://fablesofaesop.com/the-frogs-pick-a-king.html
- dontreact 6y ago
  I just think any attempt would quickly be overwhelmed by Google pointing their data engine at something similar. Whatever your idea is, it will have to not just be slightly more data efficient at learning how to serve results. It will have to be millions or billions of times more data efficient. It doesn’t seem humanly possible to compete with.

judge2020 6y ago

The Google search engine didn't have anything to build off of when it was introduced since it was using an algorithm and not ML. You could create a search engine today without utilizing any click data outside of "what link did this user click on the result page and did they search for a similar query or try another link as their next action". In fact, this is already happening. DDG is building its own crawler (I often see the ddg user agent on my web properties) and they don't have any open "machine learning expert" positions.

t-writescode 6y ago
I believe DDG also uses Bing data.
b3kart 6y ago
Sure, but when Google have been starting out they didn’t have to compete with...Google (as it is today). While companies that would like to enter the market now have to. And Google has a massive competitive advantage: their data and their scale. Not saying that regulation will necessarily help, and it’s not Google’s fault that they’re so good, but it’s silly not to admit that it’s hard to enter the search market today. Now DDG is interesting. Their results are noticeably worse (YMMV). But they are using privacy as the selling point. I wonder if you can possibly have results as good as Google’s, or be as big and profitable as Google, while maintaining user’s privacy. I guess we’ll find out.
- ridewinter 6y ago
  They said the same thing about Microsoft. Along came Google destroying them in an ancillary arena. Expect that trend to continue in the future.
  - b3kart 6y ago
    You're broadening the context. I am not saying Google as company is something you can't compete with. Many companies do so successfully in various markets. I am talking about search in particular. Which is why you bringing Microsoft in is convenient for my point. How's Microsoft's attempt to compete with Google search doing? And that's one of the few companies that can challenge Google in terms of resources.
    - ridewinter 6y ago
      Yes, broadening the context is my whole point. 20 years ago it was the OS, 10 years ago it was search, today it's social networks, tomorrow? The monopolies from each era struggle in the next. Let Google solve & dominate search while innovation moves on to the next big thing.
      - Gibbon1 6y ago
        The history is antitrust rulings are what prevents monopolies of the past from dominating the next era. IBM was constrained by an antitrust ruling. Which gave Microsoft an opening. Microsoft itself was then subject to a similar action 20 years later. So it's been another 20 years since then, so the time is ripe to clip googles wings.

baddox 6y ago

That seems extremely short-sighted. There’s nothing stopping people from coming up with a better way to find what you’re looking for than Google’s search engine.

dredmorbius 6y ago
What mechanism do you propose for keeping any one alternative frommsimply becomming the new abusive monopoly? Railroads begat AT&T begat IBM begat Microsoft begat Google begat Facebook begat Amazon. What some of us who've seen this rodeo a few times are beginning, slowly and dimly, to realise is that what we'd prefer is a healthy competitive marketplace within, sa, telecoms, chips, operating systems, publishing, search, retail, and the like. Simply crowning an endless succession of new storks as king of the frogs is losing its lustre. https://fablesofaesop.com/the-frogs-pick-a-king.html https://fablesofaesop.com/the-frogs-pick-a-king.html
dontreact 6y ago
I just think any attempt would quickly be overwhelmed by Google pointing their data engine at something similar. Whatever your idea is, it will have to not just be slightly more data efficient at learning how to serve results. It will have to be millions or billions of times more data efficient. It doesn’t seem humanly possible to compete with.