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As someone who has just launched a business to help companies produce useful free content for readers in return for their potential business, this is really wor

As someone who has just launched a business to help companies produce useful free content for readers in return for their potential business, this is really worrying trend. That said, I have full faith in people. Specifically for people to drop Google and move to smaller search engines if Google no longer shows them the best content. And to use adblockers. Google gives me fairly good results most of the time with uBlock Origin and I'm always surprised by how bad the results are without it (when I see only ads). I blame OKRs and quarterly planning. Those that care about the 10-year health of a business are shouted down by those who get bonuses by sacrificing long term gain for short term gain. Can definitely recommend The Innovator's Dilemma [0] for those who haven't read it yet. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma

shuntress 6y ago
I have been trying to use google search less but the difference in quality between google results and bing/duckduckgo results is ridiculous. Google basically always finds what I'm looking for (or what I think I'm looking for). Bing gets it maybe 60% of the time, and DDG is even less.
propogandist 6y ago
>Specifically for people to drop Google and move to smaller search engines if Google no longer shows them the best content. it's not that easy when Google has made an effort to push their browser aggressively, especially when they notice you on Google without a Chrome user agent. This has led them to have ~80% marketshare. Switching from the default search portal still doesn't free the user from being data-mined as users are generally logged into the browser. Separately, web visits hit Google DNS or SafeSearch APIs enabling them to continue build user-profiles. All their free services are meant to drive stickyness. From Gmail to Youtube to Maps to Google Assistant, people like free things -- even if all their data is being mined -- and Google's single account ensures users are locked in and unable to escape from the bigG ecosystem. Unless you go out of your way, I believe logging into a Google account on Chrome automatically logs you into the Browser too.

shuntress 6y ago

I have been trying to use google search less but the difference in quality between google results and bing/duckduckgo results is ridiculous. Google basically always finds what I'm looking for (or what I think I'm looking for). Bing gets it maybe 60% of the time, and DDG is even less.

propogandist 6y ago

>Specifically for people to drop Google and move to smaller search engines if Google no longer shows them the best content. it's not that easy when Google has made an effort to push their browser aggressively, especially when they notice you on Google without a Chrome user agent. This has led them to have ~80% marketshare. Switching from the default search portal still doesn't free the user from being data-mined as users are generally logged into the browser. Separately, web visits hit Google DNS or SafeSearch APIs enabling them to continue build user-profiles. All their free services are meant to drive stickyness. From Gmail to Youtube to Maps to Google Assistant, people like free things -- even if all their data is being mined -- and Google's single account ensures users are locked in and unable to escape from the bigG ecosystem. Unless you go out of your way, I believe logging into a Google account on Chrome automatically logs you into the Browser too.